Standards and Assessment of Construction Products

Dear Colleagues,

Standards set out specifications and other technical information concerning various kinds of products. Products placed on the market or put into service must meet certain requirements. We immediately realize their obviousness and indisputability by reading the sentences mentioned earlier. Products and standards are related, but many complex processes performed by various market stakeholders are going on between them. When we talk about construction products the situation becomes even more complicated, considering that:

• An enormous variety of construction products is used in civil engineering;
• There is a huge construction products market, and all its stakeholders should be prepared for continuous technological evolution;
• Construction products are specific, and very often non-end-use products, e.g., water, added to the product, mixed, and used appropriately, are subject to assessment;
• Construction products are assessed at different levels of micro- and macrostructure;
• Various tests are performed to evaluate construction products, including not only mechanical and physical measurements but also functional and application tests;
• The testing of construction products requires non-destructive and destructive measurement methods;
• The testing of construction products is inextricably linked with variability resulting from the uncertainty of measurements;
• Due to this uncertainty there is always a risk of incorrect assessment, i.e., the product assessed as compliant may be non-compliant, and the product rejected as non-compliant may, in fact, be compliant;
• When assessing many construction products, one should remember probability, and, in this aspect, consider the values resulting from laboratory tests;
• Construction products are subject to assessment by market surveillance authorities;
• For each manufacturer, placing a construction product on the market is associated with risk, including a negative assessment of their product in tests ordered by market surveillance authorities;
• There are possible situations in which the manufacturer has correctly assessed and verified the constancy of performance (AVCP) of their construction product, and the re-assessment by the market surveillance authorities, based on laboratory tests, is negative.

Considering the conditions and thinking mentioned above, as well as those not mentioned, that standards provide a common technical language that manufacturers should use to express the technical performance of their construction products, the weight of standards is fundamental. The exact importance of standards is for regulators expressing their requirements and designers, contractors, public authorities, and other construction product market actors willing to exchange information efficiently.

Construction product assessment is a complex, challenging, and not always fully defined issue. It is perceived differently by different stakeholders of the construction product market, especially by industry, academia, and regulators. A Special Issue of Standards dedicated to evaluating construction products is important, and I invite everyone interested in assessing construction products to publish in this Special Issue of Standards.

Dr. Jacek Michalak
Guest Editor

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