ASNZS 4859.1:2018 - Thermal Insulation material testing

ASNZS 4859.1 was significantly amended in 2018.

The emphasis on the amendment was to include a wider range of insulating materials bringing rigid foam products into the standard. These new inclusions now incorporate the following:

• EPS – expanded polystyrene foams
• XPS – extruded polystyrene foams
• PUR – polyurethane foams
• PIR – polyisocyanurate foams
• PF – phenolic foams

With the exception of EPS, these foams are expanded with a blowing agent. Due to the presence of the blowing agents, the cell gas composition changes with time and exposure to heat. These changes draw interest to the effect on insular performance. Therefore, the new standard gives us procedures for accelerated ageing to predict the effect of ageing over a 25 year period.

The accelerated ageing procedures differ somewhat depending upon the type and thickness of foams as listed above and testing now aims to achieve declared values for thermal resistance and thermal conductivity corresponding to an expected service life.

As thermal performance is a primary performance requirement, attention has been given to the determination and labelling of thermal performance.

AWTA Product Testing has drawn from the standard and it’s relevant conditioning and ageing procedures and tabled fact sheets to assist our clients to determine the ageing and testing that needs to be done in order to measure declared thermal performance.

Our customer support team is ready to assist you to determine ageing and testing requirements in order to correctly label rigid foams for the market place.

CONTACT US:

For further information on Thermal Insulation testing or pricing on the above tests - please contact us
on: PH: 03 9371 2400 or Email: [email protected]