Wind load, graphic symbols and driver training: Zoomlion’s ISO/TC96 workload grows after the Frankfurt meetings
The ISO technical committee for cranes met in Frankfurt with delegates from 16 countries, and several standards projects led by Zoomlion moved forward — including the wind load estimation standard, which has reached the international draft voting stage.
What moved in Frankfurt
More than 100 delegates from 16 member countries attended the recent series of ISO/TC96 meetings in Germany, among them China, Germany, France, the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, Finland and Japan. China took on six new international standards projects at the sessions.
Fu Ling, vice president and chief engineer at Zoomlion, presented the secretariat’s report to the general assembly in her role as ISO/TC96 committee manager. Zoomlion specialists Wang Yani, from the company’s construction crane branch, and Yu Lihu and Yuan Zhengwen, from its building crane branch, attended working group and subcommittee meetings as project leaders.
The standards in play
Three items led by the manufacturer reached identifiable milestones:
- ISO 4302 — Cranes: wind load estimation — has entered the Draft International Standard voting stage. Zoomlion says the revision incorporates Chinese storm wind map data for the first time, addressing a gap in how well the standard fits Chinese regional conditions.
- ISO/TR 25201 — Effect of wind on crane loads from adjacent building groups — was refined over several rounds of working group discussion and registered at the meeting.
- ISO 7296-1 — Graphic symbols, part 1: general — reached mature draft form and was likewise registered.
Training and safe use next
Beyond the wind and symbols work, Zoomlion will lead the revision of the crane driver training series, covering both the general principles and the mobile crane parts. Having already led publication of the general principles element of the safe use series, the company has been approved to revise the standard covering safe use of tower cranes.
That brings its total to seven crane standards currently under its leadership. Zoomlion holds the first international standardisation secretariat awarded to a Chinese construction machinery company and has 11 registered experts within ISO/TC96, working in core groups covering mobile cranes, tower cranes and remote data exchange. It says it has led or contributed to more than 30 international standards to date.
For crane owners and operators, the practical interest lies in the driver training and safe use revisions, which feed directly into competence requirements, and in the wind load work, which sits behind every out-of-service and in-service wind speed decision on site.
Source: Zoomlion — Photos: Zoomlion