International hearing protector standardization

Hearing protectors shall fulfill some minimum requirements to their performance. As hearing protector manufacturers sell the products all over the world, the testing and certification of hearing protectors has become an international issue. The ISO working group WG17 under the headlines Acoustics, Noise, produce hearing protector standards to be used at an international level.

The presentation will cover the ongoing work in WG17, including the revision of existing standards (ISO 4869-1, ISO 4869-3), upcoming new standards (ISO 4869-7) and the plans and status for future standards (performance in impulse noise, protectors with active noise reduction). Furthermore, an overview of the present European standards (CEN) and the relation to American and Australian/New Zealand standards will be discussed.