International. ASHRAE seeks industry feedback to modify part of the Regrigeration Safety Standard in order to incorporate subclass 2L into the flammability classification.
Addendum d to THE ANSI/ASHRAE Standard 15-2013, Safety Standard for Refrigeration Systems, is open for public comment until January 18, 2016 through the www.ashrae.org/publicreviews site.
Standard 15 specifies the safe design, construction, installation and operation of refrigeration systems. The 2010 edition of the ANSI/ASHRAE Standard 34-2013, Refrigerant Safe Designation and Classification, adds an optional subclass 2L to existing class 2 in the refrigerant flammability classification. This change was introduced to separate unit component refrigerants and those from mixtures that are difficult to ignite and maintain a flame, from other flammable refrigerants of class 2 (and Class 3).
"The expectation was that some of the Class 2L refrigerants would be marketed and used as substitutes for the Class A1 refrigerants that are in use today," said Dennis Dorman, chair of the Standard 15 committee. "Refrigerants in use today may be under regulatory pressure due to their relatively high global warming potential (GWP). But to do this without major economic impact, class 2L would have to be applied safely and without the strict application limitations imposed by standard 15 on other flammable refrigerants. In other words, in order to apply it widely, Class 2L refrigerants would need to be treated more as Class 1 than as Class 2 or Class 3."
At the beginning of its deliberations, the committee found that there was almost no science to support the rule changes, allowing the relaxation of Class 2 requirements, according to Dorman. In July 2011, a first revision of the proposed appendix was made available to the public and many comments were received. Since then, the committee has addressed the technical issues identified from that review.
Dorman noted that Standard 15 covers the full range of applications from residential to commercial to industry. As such, there is an unusual degree of complexity in considering appropriate rules for each.
Now, after nearly four years of research and other supporting activities conducted by industry partners, the committee has a lot of technical information to support proposals for changes to standard rules 15.
"With this public review, we are seeking suggestions for new, unusual or potentially controversial elements of the proposed appendix, which the committee believes would benefit from further public feedback before finalizing the project for its first formal public review," he said. "We also want to make sure that we don't overlook important security aspects that may come from different users of the standard, both nationally and internationally."
