EN 45545-2 Certified Rubber | Silicone, EPDM, NR & CR

Hebei Huami New Material Technology Co., Ltd. — a Beijing Stock Exchange-listed manufacturer of rubber damping and sealing components — has completed EN 45545-2 fire-behaviour testing on five rubber compounds through three independent laboratories. The reports cover requirement sets R1, R9, R22 and R23, and give rolling-stock buyers a documented material basis for specifying our parts on European rail projects. Export enquiries are handled by our wholly-owned subsidiary, Hebei Tongsource International Trade Co., Ltd.

1. What Has Been Certified

Five separate compound families were submitted and tested. Each report is tied to a specific compound and sample form — not to the company as a whole — which is why we publish the breakdown rather than a single blanket claim.

No.	Compound	Laboratory	Standard edition	Req. set	Report ref.
1	Flame-retardant silicone rubber (VMQ)	SGS	EN 45545-2:2020	R1	[Report No.] / [Date]
2	Flame-retardant EPDM	SGS	EN 45545-2:2020	R22, R23	[Report No.] / [Date]
3	Natural rubber (NR)	SGS	EN 45545-2:2020	R9	[Report No.] / [Date]
4	Silicone rubber (VMQ)	PJJC	EN 45545-2:2020	R22, R23	[Report No.] / [Date]
5	Chloroprene rubber (CR)	MA	EN 45545-2:2020+A1:2023	R9 (HL3)	[Report No.] / [Date]

 

Full PDF reports, including the tested thickness, sample form and hazard level achieved for each compound, are released to qualified buyers on request. See section 7.

2. Why EN 45545-2 Decides Whether a Rubber Part Can Be Fitted

EN 45545-2, "Railway applications — Fire protection on railway vehicles — Part 2: Requirements for fire behaviour of materials and components", is the European reference for reaction-to-fire performance of everything used on a rail vehicle. Assessment against it is the compulsory route across Europe for demonstrating that a material is suitable for trains, subways and trams.

For a procurement engineer, the practical consequence is blunt: a rubber seal can be dimensionally perfect, meet every hardness and compression-set target, and still be rejected at design review if there is no valid fire test report behind the compound. Sourcing a rail component therefore starts with two questions, not one — what does it have to seal or damp, and what does it have to survive in a fire.

The standard answers the second question through two coordinates that a buyer must supply before any supplier can respond usefully:

• Requirement set (R number) — determined by where the product sits on the vehicle, whether it is interior or exterior, and its exposed area or mass.

• Hazard level (HL1 to HL3) — determined by how the vehicle is operated and designed. HL1 carries the lowest requirement and HL3 the highest, with higher levels applying where evacuation is likely to be slow, such as vehicles with sleeping accommodation or extended tunnel operation.

A test report is only meaningful when read against both coordinates. "EN 45545-2 compliant" on its own tells a specifier nothing.

3. Requirement Sets R1, R9, R22 and R23 Explained

The standard sorts products into requirement sets identified by an R number. The current edition defines a full range of sets, each prescribing which fire tests apply and what limits must be met at a given hazard level. Four of them are directly relevant to elastomer parts, and they are the four we tested against.

3.1 What each set covers

Set	Scope	Typical rubber parts affected
R1	Interior horizontal and vertical surfaces — ceilings, side walls, window frames, display screens. Also applies to non-listed interior products with an exposed area above 0.2 m².	Silicone sheet and large-area interior profiles, wall and ceiling gasketing, large moulded trim seals
R9	Applied in place of the designated requirement set for exterior use under the standard's grouping rules.	Exterior mounted bushings, anti-vibration mounts, underframe and bogie-area sealing parts
R22	Seals and gaskets in interior applications, together with inductance coils, coils and contacts. Also the route for non-listed interior products at or below 0.2 m² exposed area.	Door and window seals, cab glazing gaskets, interior panel seals, O-rings, small moulded parts
R23	The exterior counterpart of R22 — the same product families applied outside the vehicle body, and non-listed exterior products at or below 0.2 m².	Exterior door and window seals, roof equipment gaskets, external cover and hatch seals

 

3.2 Reading the pairing R22 + R23

R22 and R23 are usually specified together because the same seal geometry frequently appears on both sides of the carbody envelope. Holding both means a single compound can be carried across an interior and an exterior position without a second qualification cycle — which is why our flame-retardant EPDM and our silicone were both submitted against the pair rather than against R22 alone.

3.3 Why R9 matters more than its low profile suggests

R9 is less widely discussed than R1 or R22, because it is reached through the grouping rules rather than appearing on most quick-reference charts. It is nonetheless the operative requirement for a large share of exterior-mounted elastomer hardware. Anti-vibration mounts, bushings and underframe sealing parts frequently land in R9, and a supplier who only holds interior approvals cannot serve those positions.

4. Compound-by-Compound Breakdown

4.1 Flame-retardant silicone rubber — SGS, R1

Silicone (VMQ) is the default choice where a part must survive a wide service-temperature window and long-term thermal ageing without hardening. Our flame-retardant silicone grade was tested by SGS against EN 45545-2:2020 R1, the set covering interior surfaces and larger-area interior products. That positions the compound for interior sheet, large-section profiles and area-dominant gasketing rather than for small discrete seals alone.

Note that R1 is an area-driven set. If the same silicone is applied in an interior position at or below the 0.2 m² threshold, the applicable route becomes R22 — which our silicone also holds through the PJJC report described in 4.4.

4.2 Flame-retardant EPDM — SGS, R22 and R23

EPDM is the workhorse of rail sealing: excellent ozone, weathering and hot-water resistance, stable compression set, and good low-temperature flexibility. Our flame-retardant EPDM was tested by SGS against EN 45545-2:2020 for both R22 and R23.

This is the most commercially significant of the five reports. It covers the product families where our existing tooling and extrusion capacity are deepest — door seals, window seals, glazing gaskets, panel seals, hatch and cover seals — and the R22/R23 pairing removes the interior/exterior boundary as a sourcing constraint.

4.3 Natural rubber — SGS, R9

Natural rubber remains unmatched for dynamic fatigue resistance and low hysteresis, which is why it dominates anti-vibration and damping applications where a synthetic elastomer would run hotter and fail sooner. Its weak point in rail is fire behaviour, and an NR compound that clears EN 45545-2 is therefore a genuinely useful thing to hold.

Our NR grade was tested by SGS against EN 45545-2:2020 R9 — the exterior route. That aligns directly with where NR damping parts actually sit on a vehicle: bogie-area and underframe mounts, suspension bushings and exterior-mounted isolators.

4.4 Silicone rubber — PJJC, R22 and R23

A second silicone grade was tested by PJJC against EN 45545-2:2020 for R22 and R23. Together with the R1 report in 4.1, this gives our silicone portfolio coverage across both the area-driven interior route and the seal-and-gasket route on both sides of the carbody — the practical effect being that a designer can hold a single material family across positions that would otherwise force two different compounds.

4.5 Chloroprene rubber — MA, R9 at HL3

Chloroprene (CR) offers a balance of oil resistance, weathering resistance and inherent flame retardance that neither NR nor EPDM matches. Our CR compound was tested by MA against the amended edition, EN 45545-2:2020+A1:2023, for R9 at hazard level HL3.

HL3 is the highest of the three hazard levels, and it is the level that applies to the operating scenarios where evacuation takes longest. A compound that holds R9 at HL3 can be specified on exterior positions of vehicles that a lower-rated material is simply locked out of — including long-tunnel and sleeper-equipped stock. For exterior sealing and damping parts on those vehicles, this report is the one that opens the door.

5. Matching a Requirement Set to a Position on the Vehicle

The table below is a starting point for narrowing material selection. It is guidance, not a substitute for the vehicle builder's own fire-safety assessment — the final requirement set and hazard level are defined by the design authority for each specific project.

Position on vehicle	Likely set	Our compound	Report
Interior wall / ceiling gasketing, large-area interior profile	R1	FR silicone	SGS
Interior door, window and panel seals; O-rings	R22	FR EPDM / silicone	SGS / PJJC
Exterior door, window, roof-equipment and hatch seals	R23	FR EPDM / silicone	SGS / PJJC
Bogie-area and underframe anti-vibration mounts, bushings	R9	Natural rubber	SGS
Exterior sealing / damping on HL3-rated vehicles	R9 at HL3	Chloroprene	MA

 

If you can tell us the position, the exposed area and the hazard level assigned to your vehicle, we can tell you within one working day which of the five reports applies and whether a further test is required.

6. The Capability Base Behind the Reports

Hebei Huami New Material Technology Co., Ltd. is listed on the Beijing Stock Exchange and manufactures rubber damping and sealing components, with a long-standing supply base in commercial vehicle applications. That background matters more for rail than it might appear.

Commercial vehicle damping and sealing is an unforgiving discipline: parts face vibration spectra, thermal cycling, road chemicals and service lives measured in hundreds of thousands of kilometres, under OEM quality regimes that leave no room for batch variation. The compounding know-how, mould engineering and process control built in that environment transfer directly to rolling stock, where the loading cases are analogous and the durability expectations are, if anything, longer.

What the rail market adds on top is the fire-safety layer. These five reports are our formal entry into that layer — the documented evidence that our compounds, not just our parts, meet the European requirement.

Our in-house capability spans compound formulation and mixing, mould design and manufacture, compression and injection moulding, extrusion, and dimensional and physical property testing. Export sales, documentation and logistics are handled by Hebei Tongsource International Trade Co., Ltd., the wholly-owned trade subsidiary.

7. How to Request Reports, Samples and Quotations

We release full test report PDFs to qualified buyers. To keep the exchange efficient, please include the following in your first enquiry:

1. The requirement set and hazard level assigned to your project, if already defined by the design authority.

2. Part drawing or profile section, with the exposed area or developed length.

3. Service requirements — temperature range, media contact, hardness, compression set target.

4. Annual volume and target start of production.

We will respond with the applicable test report, a material data sheet, a tooling and lead-time proposal, and a quotation. Where an existing compound does not cover your set or hazard level, we will say so directly and quote the additional testing required rather than stretch an existing report to fit.

8. Frequently Asked Questions

Q1. Does EN 45545-2 certify a company or a material?

A material, in a specific form. Each report is issued against a defined compound and sample configuration, including thickness, and is valid for that scope only. This is why we publish five separate reports rather than one company-level claim, and why a supplier who advertises blanket "EN 45545-2 certification" without naming compounds and requirement sets should be questioned.

Q2. What does R1 cover, and when does it apply to a rubber part?

R1 covers interior horizontal and vertical surfaces such as ceilings, side walls and window frames, and it is also the route for non-listed interior products with an exposed area above 0.2 m². For rubber, that generally means sheet, large-section profiles and area-dominant interior gasketing rather than small discrete seals.

Q3. What is the difference between R22 and R23?

They address the same product families — seals and gaskets, along with coils and contacts — on opposite sides of the carbody envelope. R22 applies to interior positions and R23 to exterior positions, and both are the applicable route for non-listed products at or below 0.2 m² exposed area on their respective side. Holding the pair lets one compound serve both.

Q4. Why does R9 appear on exterior parts rather than an obvious "exterior" set?

R9 is reached through the standard's grouping rules: where those rules apply, R9 takes the place of the originally designated requirement set for exterior use, in the same way R6 does for interior use. It is consequently the operative set for a large share of exterior-mounted elastomer hardware, including anti-vibration mounts and underframe sealing parts.

Q5. What is the significance of HL3 on the chloroprene report?

HL3 is the most demanding of the three hazard levels, applied where vehicle design and operation make evacuation slowest — long tunnel running and sleeper accommodation being the common triggers. A compound holding R9 at HL3 can be specified on exterior positions of those vehicles, which materials qualified only to HL1 or HL2 cannot serve.

Q6. Can we obtain the original test reports before placing an order?

Yes. Full PDF reports are provided to qualified buyers at the enquiry stage, ahead of any commercial commitment, so that your fire-safety engineer can verify scope, tested thickness and hazard level directly against your specification.

Q7. Do you supply to rail projects outside Europe?

Yes. EN 45545-2 is the European reference and is also widely used as a specification basis in other regions. Where a project calls for a different national standard, tell us which one at enquiry stage and we will confirm coverage or scope the additional testing.

9. Talk to Our Rail Materials Team

Whether you are qualifying a new supplier, second-sourcing an existing seal, or resolving a fire-safety gap on a part already in production, send us the position and the requirement set and we will tell you straight away whether we can cover it.

Hebei Tongsource International Trade Co., Ltd. — export subsidiary of Hebei Huami New Material Technology Co., Ltd. (Beijing Stock Exchange listed).

Request EN 45545-2 test reports, material data sheets and samples: [email] | [WhatsApp] | www.tongsource.com