EN 438 High Pressure Decorative Laminates (HPL) - General Requirements for Sheets Based on Thermoset Resins

EUROLAB laboratory provides testing and compliance services within the scope of EN 438 standard. The EN 438 standard classifies decorative laminated sheets (HPL) according to their performance and proposed main areas of application, and also provides materials with special properties such as postformability or defined reaction to fire.

Requirements are specified for the most commonly used material types, but additional types can be added as needed. The specified limit values ​​apply to the most commonly used material types, but within each classification it may be possible to obtain variants with much higher performance values.

These materials are characterized by their decorative surfaces that are relatively hard and resistant to abrasion, scratching, impact, boiling water, domestic stains and moderate heat. It is designed for interior applications such as:

• Thin single-sided laminates, usually less than 2 mm thick, for bonding to a substrate
• Single- or double-sided compact laminates from approximately 2 mm to 5 mm thick, which must be firmly supported without being adhered to a substrate
• Compact laminates, self-supporting, double-faced, usually thicker than 5 mm (thickness will be chosen according to application and panel dimensions).

The back surface of the boards having only one decorative face is made suitable for bonding to a substrate. This standard applies only to decorative laminated sheets defined in clause 3. The second part of the standard specifies test methods.

Decorative high-pressure laminated sheet (HPL) A sheet consisting of layers of fiberboard material (for example, paper) impregnated with thermosetting resins and bonded together by heat and pressure of not less than 7 MPal), outer layer or on one or both sides with decorative colors or patterns layers are within the scope of this standard.

The decorative high pressure laminated sheet (HPL) defined in this standard is made from core layers impregnated with phenolic and/or aminoplastic resins and a surface layer or layers impregnated with aminoplastic resins (mainly melamine resins).

A classification system consists of a material type that describes the general properties of the laminate, along with three index numbers describing the performance levels. This system has been developed to cover the many HPL product variants currently available. Alternatively, an alphabetical classification system can be used.

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