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The certification of anti-corrosive painting systems
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1. Principle for the awarding of the ACQPA hall-mark |
| | The ACQPA hall-mark is awarded to a painting system for a maximum of 7 years after successfully passing the following main stages :
- An application for membership with a technical file and an act of engagement is submitted by the manufacturer to the ACQPA Products Secretariat;
- Examination of the administrative admissibility of the application, and of the technical admissibility, in particular in respect of dry film thickness for the corresponding class of certification, which are carried out by the ACQPA Product Certification Committee (CCP);
- Possible visit of the paints units manufacturing which make up the system for which certification has been applied. This visit does not take place if the unit has a quality assurance system in accordance with ISO 9001 or ISO 9002;  | - Laboratory tests :
| performed after the paints have been applied in an ACQPA-approved laboratory. The application of the paints may be performed, after due agreement of the Production Certification Committee (CCP), at the applicant's premises or at another site suggested by the applicants, but this must always take place in the presence of an ACQPA representative;
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- Examination of the laboratory test results takes place in a meeting of the ACQPA CCP, with a possible applicant's hearing. This examination can lead to a positive decision to confer the right to use the ACQPA hall-mark, or to further tests or the examination of an employment reference, or to a rejection .
| - The chemical analysis of the paints making up the certified system is performed;
- The applicant receives the system's certificate and the chemical analysis forms for each paint for validation;
- Subsequently, the right to use, signed by the President of the ACQPA and the President of the CCP, is sent to the certification-holder.
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2. Operating principle of the ACQPA hall-mark. |
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The holder of the ACQPA hall-mark is bound to:
- Ensure that the paints manufactured maintain conformity with those whose references are certified and of which the analysis has been archived;
- Perform the manufacturing tests required by the ACQPA,
- Apply the manufacturing appellation submitted at the admission to the ACQPA, only to those products holding the ACQPA hall-mark,
- Ask the authorisation of the ACQPA prior to any modification in the composition or the appellation of a product, or of the place of manufacture,
- Display the ACQPA hall-mark on all packaging of the paints making up the certified systems.
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Moreover, during the 7 year validity period of the certificate, the holder's factory will be audited on at least two times. The audits are performed by auditors accredited by the ACQPA.
Finally, and independently of the audits, the holder must send an annual production declaration to the ACQPA in the form of a periodic exploitation of the test results for the finished products which bear the ACQPA hall-mark.
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3. Particular case of certified top-coat colours. |
| | Certification tests are performed with only one top-coat colour: grey or white according to the certification classes, for the visible parts of the systems presented.
Certification of 23 colours, or 21 supplementary colours, can be obtained by certification test "Florida Test", i.e. based on a standardised maximum colorimetric difference to which the test samples must conform after 12 months of exposure in Florida.
ACQPA regularly organises campaigns of this test; the results of the certified colours are published with a list of the certified systems. |
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4. Documents used to deal with an application for the certification of a painting system. |
| | The particular regulations specify the conditions in which the ACQPA "Anti-corrosive paint system" hall-mark can be awarded.
Download the document : - The text sets out the principles of the admission process, of the supervision process which is carried out by the ACQPA, of the action taken against a certification-holder, of the complaints procedure, and of the financing of the certification.
- The Annex 1 describes the particular regulations of the application, i.e.:
1. the technical specifications of the regulations,
2. the laboratory qualification tests and the test samples used
3. the certification tests of the 23 certifiable colours,
4. the ACQPA-approved bodies responsible for tests and inspection.
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This annex sets out the list of applicable standards, complementing them if need be.
NFT 34-550 and T34-600 standards set out the certification classes corresponding to the classes of retained corrosiveness, and for these classes, also set out the minimum system thickness that must be adhered to according to the number of coats applied and/or the primer type colour used.
It is important to note that NF T 34550 and T 34600 hold that each product making up the system must be able to be applied without runs on smooth sheet metal of a minimum of 1m², to an average dry thickness which is at least equal to 1.5 times its minimum contractual thickness.
| Annex 2
| describes the principle for marking the packaging of the products making up an ACQPA-certified system.
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| Annex 3
| sets out the composition of the ACQPA Production Certification Committee (CCP).
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| Annex 4
| sets out the composition of the files needed for the processing of the files which must be filled in by the applicant for:
1. the first admission form (form DA1) with advice on how to fill in the technical file of the application for certification (form DA3) and the company general information form (form DA2)
2. the application for renewal of the validity (form DR1)
3. the application for the modification of a product, a system, an appellation (form DM1) to be accompanied if need be by a supporting file (DM2)
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| Annex 5
| describes the quality requirements for the applicant and the certification-holder with, in particular, the checks to carry out on products which have obtained the right to use the ACQPA hall-mark.
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| Annex 6
| describes the forms of supervision carried out by a third party, i.e. the organisational principles of the inspection audits and the modalities required by ACQPA when certification-holder proposes modification of a product. |
| Annex 7
| sets out the prices that are applied by ACQPA for the certification tests and for the inspection visits. |
All these texts can be downloaded or obtained from the ACQPA Product Technical Secretariat.
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