General

Approvals for cable protection (UL, VG, MIL, CSA)

Approvals and standards are generally used to standardize industrial products. Internationally recognized test – procedures warrant the safety and performance of products for various industrial applications. This enhances quality insurance and is also relevant regarding legal aspects. For the aviation applications industry only the use of specially approved products. In this specific case, proof in the form of a COC (Certificate of Compliance) is required. This will be issued to the customer by the supplier if required. The following industry standards are of particular relevance within our product range of heat shrinkable tubing, fabric tubing, isolating tubes, cables and wires:

• MIL – Standards
• VG – Standards
• UL – Standards
• CSA – Standards
• DIN – Norm/EN (European Standards)

MIL – Standards

Among the most important international approvals are the United States Military Standards, abbreviated as „MIL specs“. These are a collection of guidelines, instructions and general rules that guarantee the interoperability, compatibility, and reliability of products and processes in relation to military systems.  The scope and definition of these are laid down in the Defensive Standardization Program (DSP) in the so-called DoD Manual 4120.24. In addition to their respective main areas of application in the US military, MIL standards are also applied by NATO, the Navy, and the airspace industry. Depending on the product range, it is the responsibility of the manufacturer to prove compliance with these standards e.g. for heat-shrinkable tubing. In more sensitive areas such as wires and cables, the supplier has to be listed in the Qualified Producers List (QPL). In recent decades, the MIL specification has been renamed several times. The current designation is SAE-AS23053. The following table provides an overview of our products with MIL specifications.

VG – Standards

The defense equipment standards are the German derivatives of the MIL approvals. Consequently, they also deal with the approval of products in the German military sector, which is primarily used by the German Federal Armed Forces. The publisher of the VG standards is the German Federal Office for Equipment, Information Technology, and Utilization of the German Armed Forces in Koblenz.  In detail, the VG standards, which in terms of status are equivalent to the DIN standards, contain technical and technical-economic requirements for articles and procedures in the defense sector, which cannot be realized by means of civil standards. These are designed by experts from the defense sector in cooperation with industry representatives. If a civil standard exists that satisfactorily covers the defense requirements, the corresponding VG standard is withdrawn. If VG – approval is necessary, we will try to obtain this for a particular product.

UL – Approvals

The Underwriters Laboratories standards are issued by the US institution that has been established by well-known insurance companies. These test and certify products for safety. It should be noted that they do not approve, but rather test products, components, materials, and systems to ensure they meet their specific individual requirements and safety standards. Compliance is proven by the UL mark of conformity. In total, the US institution has developed more than 1,300 safety standards so far. In most cases, these standards analyze electric strength, fire behavior, and flammability. UL-certified products are usually marked with a note regarding their specific properties. In our product range are some UL – certified products of the Fitcotube^® series. These are the thin-walled FT 100 UL and FT 300 UL hoses, which are primarily used for insulation, the thin-walled FT 175 UL and FT 190 UL hoses, which have particularly high temperature and chemical stability, the very resilient and at the same time flexible thin-walled FT 275 UL hose, and the double-walled FT 800 UL hose, which is particularly suitable for water- and moisture-tight encapsulation.

CSA Standards

The approvals of the Canadian Standard Association are the Canadian equivalent to the standards of the Underwriters Laboratories. In addition, mutual recognition has been in force between the two institutions for several years. Moreover, the same test procedures are generally used for very similar product groups under investigation. Therefore, the standards of these are to be classified as almost congruent.

DIN – Approvals / European Standard

The German Institute for standardization is responsible for setting performance and safety standards for industrial products and processes. These standards are jointly developed by industry and government representatives. In the majority of our product portfolio, these national standards are replaced by their European equivalents consisting of three committees (European Committee for Standardization CEN, European Committee for Electrotechnical Standardization CENELEC, and European Telecommunications Standards Institute ETSI). All EN standards are developed by a public standardization process. Both DIN and EN-Standards do not represent market-oriented approvals. They cover many product ranges.