DIN EN 13204:2012-09

This European Standard specifies safety and minimum performance requirements as well as test methods for double acting hydraulic rescue tools for fire and rescue service use in order to provide, as a harmonized standard, one means of conforming to Essential Requirements of the New Approach Directive 2006/42/EC (Machinery Directive). Hydraulic rescue tools are tools intended for use by the firefighting and rescue services, principally for cutting through, spreading or pushing apart the structural parts of road vehicles, ships, trains, aircraft's and building structures involved in accidents. The aim is to assist whilst extracting the casualties or to create a working space for paramedical services taking the local conditions into account. The modification of the previous edition DIN EN 13204:2005-03 had become necessary for the following reasons: The revision of EC Machinery Directive 98/37/EC and its replacement by 2006/42/EC necessitates the modification of the published European Standards cited in the Official Journal of the European Union under that Directive. If no modification is made the respective standard would be updated in an Annex Z which indicates that the standard does not comply with the requirements of the EC Machinery Directive 2006/42/EC. This would lead to omission of the standard from the Official Journal of the European Union; it would not count as a harmonized standard. As the published European Standard EN 13204:2004 was modified due to various reasons, the standard has been omitted from the Official Journal of the European Union in relation to EC Machinery Directive 2006/42/EC. In order to return the status of a harmonized standard to the European Standard EN 13204, the content of the standard was carefully checked with regard to compliance with the Machinery Directive 2006/42/EC and it has been established that the previous edition EN 13204:2004 complies with most requirements of the new EC Machinery Directive 2006/42/EC. For this reason CEN/TC 192 has decided to carry out the Unique Acceptance Procedure (UAP) for which only few technical modifications have been made with respect to DIN EN 13204:2005-03: a) "Marking" has been revised with regard to the information to be supplied by the manufacturer; b) "Information for use" has been revised to include information on noise and vibration emission as well as on spare parts; c) in Annex B concerning the declaration of noise emission values, the A-weighted emission sound pressure level has been reduced from 85 dB to 80 dB; d) some references have been corrected; e) Annex ZA has been updated for establishing the relationship between this European Standard and the essential requirements of EU Directive 2006/42/EC; f) the content has been editorially revised and "Normative references" have been updated to include EN 854 and EN ISO 3744. With DIN Specification DIN SPEC 14752, a Technical Specification has been prepared by NA 031-04-10 AA "Rettungsgeräte - SpA zu CEN/TC 192/WG 7" ("Rescue tools - Mirror Committee of CEN/TC 192/WG 7") at FNFW in order to be able to better compare, by means of examples, hydraulic cutters for fire and rescue services in accordance with DIN EN 13204 with regard to their classification and performance. It contains an alternative opportunity for comparison in accordance with the American standard ANSI/NFPA 1936:2010, Standard on Powered Rescue Tools, which contains a distinction of the cutting ability information according to the various steel profiles. This allows for more individual comparison of tools due to the fact that classification in accordance with DIN EN 13204 is oriented on the most inefficient steel profile cutting ability. DIN SPEC 14752 shall be taken into account during the next revision of DIN EN 13204. Especially the differentiation of the cutting ability information in accordance with the various steel profiles analogous to the American standard ANSI/NFPA 1936:2010, Standard on Powered Rescue Tools which is considered advantageous from the German point of view is suggested by Germany. This European Standard has been prepared by European Working Group CEN/TC 192/WG 7 "Hydraulic rescue tools and lifting bags" (secretariat: NEN, Netherlands) at Technical Committee CEN/TC 192 "Fire service equipment" (secretariat: BSI, United Kingdom). Collaboration of DIN at the European Committee of Standardization (CEN) for the field of responsibility of CEN/TC 192/WG 7 "Hydraulic rescue tools and lifting bags" is performed through Working Committee NA 031-04-10 AA "Rettungsgeräte - SpA zu CEN/TC 192/WG 7" ("Rescue tools - Mirror Committee for CEN/TC 192/WG 7") at the Firefighting and Fire Protection Standards Committee (FNFW).