|
 Specialists at the US National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have helped create two new standards designed to increase safety in public spaces.
In any public space you are bound to pass a familiar container that makes for an attractive spot to stash a bomb: a trash can. Not only does a trash receptacle present an easy place for a terrorist to hide an explosive device before making a quiet getaway, but the metal from a bin can rupture into shrapnel that flies outward in all directions, increasing the risk to passersby.
While industry has been producing blast-resistant trash receptacles for years, there were no widely-accepted specifications for judging a manufacturer's particular claims of product safety. The Science and Technology Directorate of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and several manufacturers began working with NIST in 2007 to address the lack of standards for blast resistance among trash receptacles. The results of the DHS-funded work now have been published by the standards development organization ASTM International.
The two new standards are:
E 2639 – 09a, Standard Test Method for Blast Resistance of Trash Receptacles and E2740 – 10, Standard Specification for Trash Receptacles Subjected to Blast Resistance Testing. They are available at http://www.astm.org/Standards/E2639.htm
•Date: 25th June 2010 • Region: US •Type: Article •Topic: Terrorism
Rate this article or make a comment - click here
|
