General Info - Services towards the Textile Industry and Users
Testing
The Department of Textiles maintains its tradition of providing services to the textile and clothing sector. A whole range of tests is put at their services. The Department confirms its strong position in testing of textile materials, with extension to automotive flexible materials and other than textile - floorcoverings.
The Department is always present at the Domotex fair in Hannover. Many companies from all over the world come to visit us and ask for tests afterwards. The Department of Textiles is getting world-wide recognition as a Notified Laboratory for testing of carpets according to EN 14041. Our European Notification Number is NB 1611.
The test methods for artificial turf are further expanded. Currently all equipment to test the parameters required by FIFA is available: such as equipment for measuring Ball Rebound, Ball Roll, Rotational Resistance, Shock Absorbency, Vertical Deformation, Energy Restitution, Wear, Particle Size, Bulk Density, Particle Shape, Tuft Withdrawal Force, Base Permeability, Dimensional Stability,…
Accreditation
In March 2006, the Department obtained accreditation according to ISO 17025, version 2005. The department was among the first laboratories in Belgium that fully complied with the new version of the standard. In this version of the standard, more attention is paid to improvement. As the department already applied several tools to strive for continuous improvement, no major changes to the quality system were needed in order to fulfil the new requirements.
The Department’s research centre for artificial turf (ERCAT) has passed for the FIFA round robin and is now accredited for Field tests!
Standardisation
Our Department continues to follow up all standardisation activities within ISO TC 219, CEN TC 217 and CEN TC 134 floor coverings.
The project leader Didier Van Daele reports on the following progress:
- ISO TR 4918 results of voting will be discussed in Tokyo.
- ISO 9405 Assessment for changes in appearance: new methods for subjective visual assessment are being developed. In parallel, further attempts are being made to replace the human assessment by automated evaluation systems.
- ISO 6356 Assessment of static electrical propensity - “Walking” test.
- ISO 10965 Determination of electrical resistance: comments were discussed.
- ISO 12951 Determination of mass loss by means of the Lisson test: calibration method will be made conform to EN 1963.
In CEN TC 189 geosynthetics, Johanna Louwagie is project leader for the EN ISO 12236 Static puncture (CBR) test and the EN ISO 13433 Cone drop test. The new version of these 2 tests has been approved in 2006. On the international level, heavy discussions have been ongoing on the subject of the importance of elongation of geotextiles.
The Department of Textiles also actively takes part in CEN TC 217 ‘Surfaces for sports areas’, where it is member of WG 6 Synthetic turf surfaces. In 2006, this WG devoted quite some work to the development of new standards. One of the main new methods is EN 15330 part1: ‘specification for synthetic turf for outdoor use. This standard intends to specify requirements for applications for hockey, football, rugby, tennis and multi-sports areas. Our Department also takes part in the CEN environmental task group that is discussing about new standards for the health and environmental aspects of artificial turf.
For further information about testing:
e-mail: Johanna.Louwagie@UGent.be
tel.: +32 (0)9 264 57 36
fax: +32 (0)9 264 58 46
