Monitoring of international standards in the scope of ISO/TC 71 “Concrete, reinforced concrete, pre-stressed concrete”

Abstract

Introduction. At present, various approaches to standardization in construction are used that are often in poor agreement. This hinders international cooperation and collaborative planning, design, and construction of facilities. The harmonization of construction standards has been long overdue.Aim. In this work, international standards were monitored and compared with Russian analogs in order to develop an approach to their harmonization.Materials and methods. The European and American standards of the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) were selected for further comparison with the Russian analogs. A random monitoring, analysis, and comparison of ISO standards and Russian regulatory-technical base were carried out for its timely update, the elimination of emerging redundancies and contradictions, and the improvement of the harmonization of Russian and international standards in construction in the scope of ISO/TC 71 “Concrete, reinforced concrete, pre-stressed reinforced concrete.”Results. The analysis of 14 international ISO standards allowed the documents to be classified into three groups for further work and steps toward their possible harmonization with the Russian national standards and toward the development of analogous national standards to be outlined.Conclusions. Based on the monitoring results, it is recommended to classify ISO standards into three groups: 1. ISO standards of lesser relevance to national standardization due to a complete or, in some cases, more comprehensive regulatory base. 2. ISO standards where the standardization parameters differ from Russian standards or where the subject of standardization is reflected in several associated standards. Such standards should be harmonized with international standards. 3. ISO standards having no national analogs. Therefore, it is recommended to harmonize the Russian standards related to the second group and, in the absence of Russian analogs, develop national standards equivalent to those of the third group.