What is ISO 12402‑7 about?
ISO 12402‑7 is seventh in the series of documents on personal floating devices. ISO 12402‑7 specifies the minimum requirements for the construction and performance of materials and components of personal flotation devices, as well as the relevant test methods.
ISO 12402‑7 deals with personal floatation devices (PFDs) for persons engaged in activities, whether in relation to their work or their leisure, in or near water.
Who is ISO 12402‑7 for?
ISO 12402‑7 on personal floatation devices is useful for:
- PFD manufacturers
- PFD designers
- Quality control personnel
- Safety and health departments
- Risk management departments
- Textile engineers
Why should you use ISO 12402‑7?
PDF’s provide various degrees of buoyancy in garments that are light in weight and only as bulky and restrictive as needed for their intended use. They need to be secure when worn, to provide positive support in the water and to allow users to swim or actively assist themselves or others.
ISO 12402‑7 specifies the requirements for the construction, test and acceptance criteria marking for PFDs to provide higher levels of support (levels 100, 150, or 275) that generally float the wearer with greater water clearance when required for increasingly severe conditions; or to provide lighter or less bulky PFDs.
By using the requirements, material and components specified in ISO 12402‑7 you can improve the quality of PFDs by increasing its reliability and durability, and the in-water performance of the PFDs
What’s changed since the last update?
BS EN ISO 12402‑7:2020 supersedes ISO 12402-7:2006. BS EN ISO 12402‑7:2020 has some technical changes. These include:
- The temperature of temperature cycling (4.1.6.3) was changed from (65 ± 2) °C into (60 ± 2) °C. Compliance criteria in Table 1, Sewing thread, were changed
- Requirements for fabrics performance were changed. Compliance criteria of webbing closures and adjusters were modified
- New chromaticity coordinates x and y and luminance factor β for yellow, orange and red non-fluorescent colours of lifejacket material were added
- New chromaticity coordinates x and y and luminance factor β for yellow, yellow-orange, orange and orange-red fluorescent colours of lifejacket material were added
- Immersion of zippers, automatic and manual inflation systems in IRM 902 oil was deleted and ambient temperature replaced by (20 ± 2) °C