Standards and codes of practice

The need for building control arose primarily to protect the health and safety of the population and, latterly, to conserve fuel and power and prevent waste. Local and State Building Regulations give standards of performance necessary in the building and, as such, make reference to national and international standards and codes of practice. The regulations cover two areas of health and safety and can be subdivided as follows ... 

If extensions are being made to existing facilities or buildings adjacent to traditional stmctures then this may require the use of brickwork cladding or block and render in order to satisfactorily marry with the existing stmctures. Care must be taken to ensure such extensions/additions meet current building regulations, bylaws, standards and codes of practice. 

Make sure that the drawings, specifications and bid documents are clear and unambiguous. Do not rely on exclusion clauses in the specification or bid document. Have designs checked and use methods and equipment that comply with British Standards and Codes of Practice. 

The number and quality of the safety shut-off valves required is specified in the relevant Standards and Codes of Practice. These are usually electrically operated valves conforming to class 1 or class 2 as defined in BS 5963, Specification for electrically-operated automatic gas shutoff valves (1981). This specifies forward pressures and reverse pressures that the valve must withstand in the closed position together with closing times. 

All pipework must be installed to the appropriate standard and codes of practice. The degree of insulation will be suitable for the temperature of the pipework, although the finish may vary, depending upon site preferences. Valve boxes are recommended, although on some low-pressure installations these are not always included. 

In all the major industrialised countries the design and fabrication of thin-walled pressure vessels is covered by national standards and codes of practice. In most countries the standards and codes are legally enforceable. 

Certificates issued by the British Board of Agrement (BBA) cover new or innovative construction products not covered by existing British Standards and Codes of Practice. These certificates, which are the result of assessment by BBA based on manufacturers information and on independent testing, also provide information on projected lifetimes. In future, under the European Construction Products Directive, product performance details including durability will be given on the label of each CE marked product. An example of how this is applied will be described in the next section. 

In 1961/62 the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the World Health Organization (WHO) established the Joint FAO/WHO Codex Alimentarius Commission (CAC) to elaborate international food standards and codes of practice for questions related to food. Questions concerning contaminants were dealt with, partly by the Commodity Committees and partly in the Codex Committee for Food Additives and Contaminants (CCFAC). The Codex Alimentarius system concerning contaminants is described in section 12.2. 

The Joint FAOAVHO Food Standard Programme and the Codex Alimentarius Commission elaborate international food standards and codes of practice for questions related to food. Codex Alimentarius is Latin and means food code. The purpose of the Joint FAOAVHO Food Standards Programme, as laid down in the statutes of the Codex Alimentarius Commission includes... 

Standards and codes of practice that help ensure safer designs... 

Standards and codes of practice are an essential part of engineering therefore, the relevant North American standards are cited. The codes and practices covered by these standards will be applicable to other countries. They will be covered by equivalent national standards in most developed countries, and in some cases the relevant British, European, or International standards have also been cited. Brief... 

Industrial consumers of bought-in hydrogen usually store the gas in banks of vertical or horizontal cylinders at pressures in the range from 20 MPa up to a maximum of 80 MPa. Such high pressures necessitate thick-walled and heavy steel containers. In the past, failures have been experienced through hydrogen embrittlement, which induces stress fractures in the steel. Cylinder manufacture is now therefore subject to strict standards and codes of practice. This form of storage is modular with little economy of scale. 

Requires system experience. Checklists can be utilised in the process to identify hazards they can also be used to check that designs comply with certain standards and codes of practice or that protective measures are correctly employed. They are, however, reliant on the knowledge and experience of those persons compiling the lists. 

ABSTRACT The determination of loads from accidental fires with realistic accuracy in the oil gas industry offshore and petrochemical industry onshore is important for the prediction of exposure of persoimel, equipment and structures to the fires. Standards, Codes of Practice and other similar publications refer to thermal loading from jet fires from 100 to 400kW/m and from 50 to 250kW/m for pool fires. The application of inappropriate fire loads may lead to incorrect predictions of fatalities, explosion of pressure vessels and collapse of structures. Further uncertainties are associated with heat transfer from the flame to pressure equipment and strucmres, and their behaviour when affected by accidental fires. The Paper presents results of a review of fire models from various Standards and Codes of Practice, and data obtained from full scale tests. A parametric study of the various methods used in the industry is presented. A simulation-based reliability assessment (SBRA) method has been applied to quantify potential accuracy range and its consequences to fire effects on structures. 

WPC is so-called because of its color. It is made from the purest chalk and kaolinite, and contains much less Fe203 than the normal gray Portland cement. SRPC is produced for its resistance to sulfate attack, and has a higher Fe203 content, often added to the raw meal as iron oxide. The other types named above contain a major (>5wt.%) constituent. They are used for a variety of reasons, sometimes simply cost reduction, but often to exploit their particular properties. Standards and Codes of Practice regulate their use by specifying appropriate applications and minimum strength, and/or minimum cement content, of a concrete. 

Reference should also be made to the British Standards Institution s Standards and Codes of Practice listed in the BSI Yearbook , some of which are referred to above, and to the manufacturer s instructions. Given attention to such matters, and to the proper training, instruction and supervision of people who work at or near electrical equipment, electricity should continue to be a safe, convenient and efficient source of power. 

Govermnent departments exist to admiiuster the occupational health, safety and welfare legislation. These departments have an inspectorate role and may also provide information, education and traiiting services. They are also given the responsibility to prosecute for a breach of particular legislation and the task of produeing standards and codes of practice. Some also provide research grants for occupational health and safety studies. 

The three types of standards, and codes of practice, should be hsted as reference material from a consultant in the specialized area. The consultant should be up to date with the available information. These documents provide an immediate soiuce of information for the partieular hazard in question, and are available in hard copy or electronic format Another method which can be used when assessing a risk is to assess the relationship between the causes and effects of a risk. The process for doing this is represented in the Fishbone or Ishikawa diagram above (see Fig. 4.3). 

In defending any allegation of negligence, the burden will be on the mamrfactirrer or designer to show that they took all reasonable care to avoid such an eventuality and this is frequently done by showing that all relevant standards and codes of practice have been adhered to, hence the importance of documents snch as those referred to in Sections 10.1 and 10.2. Snch an approach has gained judicial approval, as for instance, in the case of Sevan... 

In other words, if standards and/or codes of practice are not adhered to, the onus will be on the designer/producer to explain the departure from the standards and demonstrate that what was done, in the event, achieved an equivalent or higher standard. Such an approach may work well in branches of engineering where there are well-defined standards and codes of practice, but as was discussed in Section 10.2.1, at the present time standards in relation to safety-critical software are only just emerging and, as yet, there are no generally well-accepted standards which can be used by software engineers developing software for use in such applications. ... 

And today, even relatively young countries have made tremendous progress in safety practices. The United Arab Emirates became a country in 1971. Abu Dhabi, the capital, created the Environment, Health, and Safety Center in 2010. In a few short years, a series of safety standards and codes of practices have started being developed across many industries including transportation, health, tourism, water and electricity, waste managanent, education, food industry, building and construction, and industrial and commercial activity sectors. 

Standards and Codes of Practice in Medical Radiation Dosimetry, Proceedings of an International Symposium, Vienna, Austria, Nov. 25-28 2002, Vol. 2, International Atomic Energy Agency, Vienna, Austria, 2003 R 267 C. Baldock, Radiotherapy Gel Dosimetry , p. 339... 

Chapter 56 and section 313-02-01 are concerned with the requirements for electricity supplies for safety services which are generally for energising fire alarms, fire fighting and emergency lighting installations, but also, for example, for gas detection installations in unattended locations where there is a flammable hazard. Some of these installations are subject to statutory requirements which the designer must observe. He should also have regard to applicable standards and codes of practice. 

International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) http //www.icao.int/ (accessed November 3, 2010). Produces international standards and codes of practice for airport design. 

The information in this and similar reports is mostly pre-normative in the sense that it provides the underlying scientific fundamentals on which standards and codes of practice are based. Without such a solid scientific basis, construction practice will be less than efficient or economical. 

On some process plant projects owners will be applying their own standards and codes of practice. These can be significant and their implications must be understood and taken into account. 

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