Dear Mr. Bugge,
Many thanks for your kind letter of March 13 and for your interest expressed to the work of our committees in ISO. We share your opinions related to the importance of structural safety. It is obvious that we should consider very seriously the development of all kinds of actions on structures, including climatic actions. The question whether in fact the climate is changing in such a way that the actions from wind and snow will increase is not solved yet, but we agree that this problem merit serious studies.
Coming back to the main subject of your letter, please consider following information:
- The climatic actions on buildings, as well as all other problems related to the structural safety, are considered in National Standards and also in European Standard, that since 2010 will be the only standards in Europe,
- In every country, the standards published are completed by special pages, which include local prescriptions and particular recommendations, related among others to loads from wind and snow. Special maps for these actions are elaborated.
- In ISO Standards only general principles are proposed as to the application of loads and actions on structures. These principles include the newest results of research and observations. The ISO Technical Committee 98 "Bases for Design of Structures" and the Subcommittee 3 "Action on Structures" prepared several ISO Standards and further ISO Standards are in various stages of drafting.
- Without any doubt, new ISO Standards have a very positive influence on stardardization in all countries and regions of the world.
The problem of the climatic variations and possible influence on the actions on structures was discussed in 2002 at the plenary meeting of ISO/TC98. As a result, we tried to initiate a working group that may consider this problem in detail and perhaps to prepare a new series of ISO Standards. However, this initiative was not supported by the countries-members of ISO/TC98 and until now such a Working Group could not be set up.
The reason for that situation is very simple: the governments and societies reduce their financial support for the activity of their respective standardization institutions and there is not enough money for new items of work.
We would suggest that you may intervene in the Danish Standardization Committee to present such an initiative at the nearest annual meetings of ISO/TC98 and TC98/SC3 in December 2006 and we will be more than happy to set up a Working Group in that subject.
With our kind regards,
Professor Jun Kanda, Ph.D, Chairman of ISO/TC98/SC3,
Institute of Environmental Studies,The University of Tokyo
tel: +81-3-5841-7448
fax: +81-3-5841-8518
e-mail: kandaj@k.u-tokyo.ac.jhttp://www.load.arch.t.u-tokyo.ac.jp/
Professor Andrzej M. Brandt, Chairman of ISO/TC98
Institute of Fundamental Technological Research
Polish Academy of Sciences
00-049 Warsaw, Swietokrzyska 21, Poland
ph.:+4822-8263143
fax:: +4822-8269815
e-mail: abrandt@ippt.gov.pl
http://www.ippt.gov.pl