|
|
Testing
THE SKINNY ON STANDARDS
Have you ever wondered what the CE mark is? And what about
the UIAA symbol found on product labels and marketing literature?
In
Europe there is legislation requiring that equipment
used to protect against falls from heights be certified
for both the base design and the continued production of
that equipment. For climbing equipment, manufacturers must
certify to specific harmonized European standards or EN
standards. These standards outline the safety requirements
and test methods for most PPE (Personal Protective Equipment)
climbing equipment.
The
first recognized standards for mountaineering and climbing
equipment were developed by the UIAA. These old standards
were the basis for the more recent EN standards, which
are now the legal requirements of the European Union.
The modern UIAA standards are based on the existing EN
standards, but they are not legal requirements and some
of them have additional requirements above and beyond the
EN standards. Certification to these
standards means that the equipment meets the basic design
and structural requirements of the standards, but does
not guarantee that equipment is unbreakable in all conditions
possibly encountered while climbing. A product bearing
the CE mark signifies that the product has passed the testing
requirements and that the manufacturer either has an adequate
system for monitoring the quality of the final product
or has an appropriate internal quality control system— typically
done through ISO 9001 certification. Black Diamond achieved
ISO 9001 certification in 1999, and has recently updated
its certification to the recent ISO 9001:2000 standard.
At
Black Diamond we've adopted the EN standards as the basis
of our testing procedures to make sure that our products
continue to meet the safety requirements outlined by these
standards. This means that all Black Diamond technical
climbing products, and specifically those products used
to protect against falls (such as carabiners, Camalots™,
Stoppers, etc.) must undergo rigorous testing on
a continuous basis. What is the end result? Gear you can
trust. Gear you can depend on.
Example:
CARABINER
MANUFACTURING & TESTING
Confidence
in your carabiners means confidence in your climbing.
The last thing you should be thinking about when nearing
the crux is whether or not your last clip was bomber
or not. To earn your trust in our gear we go to great
lengths to produce only the strongest, highest-quality
biners possible. All Black Diamond carabiners start as
7075 aluminum alloy, which is delivered in stacks of
12-foot rods. To make our carabiner bodies, we then cut
the 7075 stock to length, bend it, cold forge it and
stamp the gate ends and gate notches in a two step process
that allows us to hold close tolerances. Biner bodies
are then heat treated in our state of the art heat-treating
ovens to give them the right blend of toughness and strength.
The gate material, also heat-treated, is cut, drilled
and milled to shape on an automatic gate machine. Both
parts are then tumbled and polished to the smoothest
sheen. The carabiners are assembled on the assembly line
and each one is run through our custom engineered Carabiner
Testing Machine (CTM) which tests the gate action, pulls
the biner to ½ its rated strength,
performs a photo-imaging comparison analysis and stamps
a date code. Several carabiners from each batch manufactured
are then tested to destruction to allow a statistical analysis
to be performed, ensuring that the biners made are meeting
the required strength ratings.
back
to top
|
|
