Manual intervention testing for security of windows and doors

 

Technical Consultant’s comments – Patrick England

 

With the imminent possibility of a new set of European Standards relating to security testing, EN1627-30, being published this year or early next year which relies on the use of manual intervention testing, it raises the question of the validity of such testing.

Manual Intervention testing requires the test engineer to pit his/her wits against the product under test, be it a door or a window, and using a specified array of tools to attempt to ‘break into’ the product in order to establish its security.

One of the issues to be dealt with, prior to publication, in the European Standards Technical Committee in October is whether or not manual intervention testing can be sufficiently repeatable to enable a product to be certified under the standard, and the answer quite simply, is NO!

I can think of no way in which it would be possible to ensure that the test engineer carrying out a test this year will be able to apply exactly the same loadings in the same way, when they repeat the test in one year’s time. In that time they may have increased or decreased in strength, they may have increased their knowledge of the products being tested, they may have developed a different technique which is more effective, the probability of repeatability of the test by the same person is fairly low.

Now consider the likelihood of different test engineers in the UK achieving the same levels of force or methods of application, and that possibility becomes even less, extend that to the 31 members of the EU and it is clear that repeatability of testing is impossible.
Watch this space ...

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