Testing by UNSW@ADFA Proves Crimsafe's Strength
Recently, Crimsafe had the University of New South Wales' School of Aerospace and Civil and Mechanical Engineering at the Australian Defence Force Academy design a rigorous scientific test to determine exactly how much force Crimsafe screens can resist before breaking. We also tested stainless steel security screens bought directly from 9 leading competitors.
The results were both surprising and a little disappointing. Let us explain....
The Dynamic Impact Test
In the Australian Standard AS5041:2003 - Methods of Test, the Dynamic Impact Test simulates the effects of a human impact against a security screen door or window grille by allowing a standardised weight to swing against the test specimen 5 times. Each impact is about 100 joules of energy. That's roughly the impact force imparted by a child stumbling into a glass door and in fact, the test was originally designed for the glazing industry so they could make glass that didn't shatter upon a small impact.
Standard not high enough, yet competing screens still fail
Unfortunately, 100 joules is a lot less force than a motivated burglar can deliver. After the testing we requested the scientists conducting the test to make a recommendation on the level of impact resistance that the Australian Standard should require, and they put the figure at 150 joules and 10 impacts if the burglar kicks the door and 200 joules if the burglar is able to use an implement such as a baseball bat or brick.
Yet 6 competing brands that we tested failed to meet even the current minimum standard of impact resistance. These screens are leading brands and they broke before the test delivered even 100 joules of energy in an impact!
3 security screens managed to reach the 150 joule level but only two exceeded it and they both failed to protect against anything more than 200 joules. From our perspective it is very disappointing that the Australian Standard doesn't require better performance of security screens. In fact, in most cases, the word 'security' should not be associated with these screens as they fail to deliver adequate protection against one of the most common methods of entry: a well-aimed kick.
Watch as three separate competing brands fail to withstand the UNSW at ADFA testing.
Crimsafe Security Screens passed easily!
We tested three types of Crimsafe product: our standard residential range, our heavy duty range and our commercial range.
Crimsafe Residential screen withstood up to 500 joules of impact energy. That's twice as good as any competing screen and 5 times the impact level the current Australian standard requires.
Crimsafe Heavy Duty screen withstood 700 joules of energy at impact. Seven times higher than the impact level that the standard requires.
Our Commercial screen withstood 1200 joules of impact energy. That's 12 times higher than the impact level of the standard and nearly 5 times more force than any competing screen can withstand. Watch the video below with the sound up and you'll get a good sense of just how heavy an impact of 1200 joules is.
Here's a graph of how all the screens performed in comparison to each other.
Download our UNSW@ADFA Test Results fact sheet
We've prepared a fact sheet containing these results and other information which you can download here.
