ASTM International - Standards

Standards

The standards produced by ASTM International fall into six categories:

  • the Standard Specification, that defines the requirements to be satisfied by subject of the standard.
  • the Standard Test Method, that defines the way a test is performed and the precision of the result. The result of the test may be used to assess compliance with a Standard Specification.
  • the Standard Practice, that defines a sequence of operations that, unlike a Standard Test Method, does not produce a result.
  • the Standard Guide, that provides an organized collection of information or series of options that does not recommend a specific course of action.
  • the Standard Classification, that provides an arrangement or division of materials, products, systems, or services into groups based on similar characteristics such as origin, composition, properties, or use.
  • the Terminology Standard, that provides agreed definitions of terms used in the other standards.

The quality of the standards is such that they are frequently used worldwide.

The Annual Book of ASTM Standards covers 15 sections of interest plus a master index:

  1. Iron and Steel Products
  2. Nonferrous Metal Products
  3. Metals Test Methods and Analytical Procedures
  4. Construction
  5. Petroleum Products, Lubricants, and Fossil Fuels
  6. Paints, Related Coatings, and Aromatics
  7. Textiles
  8. Plastics
  9. Rubber
  10. Electrical Insulation and Electronics
  11. Water and Environmental Technology
  12. Nuclear, Solar, and Geothermal Energy
  13. Medical Devices and Services
  14. General Methods and Instrumentation
  15. General Products, Chemical Specialties, and End Use Products
  16. Index to all sections and volumes

ASTM Standards can be purchased as a digital library subscription or individually from ASTM and other qualified standards providers. When maintaining a large standards library, often digital subscriptions are used to simplify staying current on standards and to remain in compliance with all copyright laws. A technical library at a university may also have copies of standards to review.

Read more about this topic:  ASTM International

Famous quotes containing the word standards:

    “As long as our people quote English standards they dwarf their own proportions.”
    —Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)

    “Our ego ideal is precious to us because it repairs a loss of our earlier childhood, the loss of our image of self as perfect and whole, the loss of a major portion of our infantile, limitless, ain’t-I-wonderful narcissism which we had to give up in the face of compelling reality. Modified and reshaped into ethical goals and moral standards and a vision of what at our finest we might be, our dream of perfection lives on—our lost narcissism lives on—in our ego ideal.”
    —Judith Viorst (20th century)

    “In this nation I see tens of millions of its citizens, a substantial part of its whole population, who at this very moment are denied the greater part of what the very lowest standards of today call the necessities of life. I see one third of a nation ill-housed, ill-clad, ill-nourished. The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much, it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little.”
    —Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882–1945)