Product Standards and Panel Performance

Product standards provide established performance levels that have been found satisfactory for typical end-use applications for a given product. Standards evolve in that they build on methods and approaches that have been found to be suitable for similar products. Initially standards were local product specifications. These have been extended both in range and in scope firstly as national standards and 

For products intended to perform where a degree of water exposure is likely, such as kitchens or bathrooms a higher level of resistance to moisture is expected. In this case the permitted swelling level is lower, and additional tests may be required. 

The response to water is critical in applications where water exposure occurs. Both particleboard and MDF ultimately fail unless moisture is excluded, limiting applications to those areas where the chance of this occurring is small. Most applications in furniture, fittings and cabinetry meet this requirement. There are also applications where structural performance is not usually critical, that is where a failure of the item does not endanger the structure as a whole. 

Where a component eontributes to structural performance in a building then a durability requirement, usually expressed in terms of exposure conditions and time, will apply unless the possibility of moisture affecting that part of the structure can be totally excluded. For established materials the durability performance is known. 

Fibreboards have been used as exterior sidings, a non-struetural applieation, but with limited success. These examples indieate that while some applieations where durability is a requirement are sueeessful, these require eontrol of the exposure eonditions, particularly those that ean lead to moisture ingress. 

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