ISO Technical Committee Works to Advance Energy Efficiency

Picture: TC 131/SC 6 delegates in action

The International Standards Organization (ISO) technical committee for fluid power (TC 131), along with 19 of its subcommittees and working groups, converged on Frankfurt am Main, Germany and Milan, Italy in October to foster standards development within the hydraulics and pneumatics industries. The delegates in each committee/working group worked diligently to resolve and move many fluid power ISO projects forward.  Along with building consensus to confirm and/or withdraw individual projects in each of the committees, ISO/TC 131/SC 9 – Installations and Systems continued its discussion on the importance of developing standards to address the energy issues facing customers. The following resolution for developing energy-related standards was adopted as a result:

Recognizing that energy is an important issue facing the users and manufacturers of fluid power, ISO TC 131/SC 9 will pursue the development of standards and technical reports, as deemed appropriate, to measure, model, analyze, or rate energy efficiency or power consumption of fluid power systems as well as recommendations for good practice.  Accordingly, ISO TC 131/SC 9 will re-activate:

WG 1 for hydraulic systems;

WG 2 for pneumatic systems.

Each working group will receive proposals for discussion and follow the ISO procedures to develop standards or technical reports.

This was a well-debated issue among the experts during the meeting, and a consensus was reached to allow those WG’s to develop energy-related standards or technical reports on their components. All experts were invited to make proposals regarding energy systems at the next meeting.

Fifty-three fluid power engineering experts attended this round of meetings, representing ISO member bodies from China, Japan, United Kingdom, Italy, France, Germany and the United States. Thirteen U.S. experts traveled to the meetings from NFPA member companies Cummins Filtration, Main Manufacturing, Parker Hannifin, and SMC. U.S. Technical Advisory members from John Deere and PAMAS also attended as U.S. delegates.

A special thanks to VDMA and DIN for the gracious hospitality that they extended to the delegates.  Poland, Germany and the United Kingdom are being researched as possible meeting locations in 2016.   The location and dates will be finalized over the next couple of weeks.  If you would like to learn how you can get involved in standards work, please contact me at drockhill@nfpa.com.