China Releases an Updated Mandatory Standard GB 20653-2020 Protective clothing—High visibility warning clothing for professional use

The Standardization Administration of China issued its mandatory national standard GB 20653-2020 Protective clothing—High visibility warning clothing for professional use. Being included in China’s No. 18 announcement on the newly approved national standards in 2020, this new standard will replace the previous version, GB 20653-2006. The new mandatory national standard will become effective on August 1, 2021.

Scope

This standard is applicable for high visibility clothing intended to provide conspicuous warning of the worker in an environment with low visibility.

Definition for high visibility warning clothing

Clothing by special design using fluorescent material and retroreflective material, intended to provide increased conspicuity and warning in situations where the risk of not being seen is high.

Main Technical Contents

These technical contents include requirements for classes and design, performance requirements for background material, non-fluorescent material and combined-performance material, retroreflective performance requirements for retroreflective material and combined-performance material.

Main Technical Changes

There are several important revisions to GB 20653, contained in the 2020 version. These include the following additions:

1. some terms and definitions
2. requirement for measurement for area of high visibility warning clothing and class rating
3. requirement for chemical properties and test methods for background material and non-fluorescent material
4. normative annex D “Positioning of bands of retroreflective material for industrial wash test”
5. Informative annex F “environment risk level and guidelines for the design of high visibility garments”

Revisions include:

1. standard name is adjusted from <High visibility warning clothing for professional use> to <Protective clothing—High visibility warning clothing for professional use>
2. design requirement for warning clothing
3. ergonomics requirement for warning clothing
4. requirements for colourfastness to perspiration of background material and non-fluorescent material
5. requirements for colourfastness (domestic and commercial laundering, dry-cleaning, bleaching (hypochlorite), hot pressing) of background material and non-fluorescent material
6. requirement for dimensional change of background material and non-fluorescent material and test method of dimensional change
7. requirement for mechanical properties for background material and non-fluorescent material
8. retroreflective performance requirement for separate performance retroreflective material and cancelled three classes.
9. test methods of dimensional change after washing or dry-cleaning
10. graphical symbol of high visibility warning clothing and deleted the markings (indicating Performance Class) of the graphical symbol of GB 20653-2006.

Details of the Technical Content

For more information, please refer to the China National Mandatory Standard GB 20653-2020<Protective clothing—High visibility warning clothing for professional use> or contact SGS directly.

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