What Are the Different Sections of the ASTM Standards?
- ASTM standards are not law. ASTM standards are voluntary. However, meeting ASTM standards can be required to do business. "Financial Reporting of Environmental Liabilities and Risks after Sarbanes-Oxley" by C. Gregory Rogers says "Standard commercial agreements in some industries obligate the contracting parties to comply with all applicable ASTM standards."
- "Industrial Plastics: Theory and Applications" by Terry Richardson and Erik Lokensgard says "ASTM annually publishes the Book of ASTM Standards, which includes 15 sections covering various materials and industries. In total, there are 76 volumes and over 11,000 standards in the complete ASTM set." Each of the 15 ASTM sections has hundreds if not thousands of standards. A sixteenth book, a volume 00 with an index of the related standards, is also published with the fifteen ASTM sections.
- According to the "Annual Book of ASTM Standards" by ASTM, the ASTM sections are "Section 01 -- Iron and Steel, Section 02 -- Nonferrous Metal Products, Section 03 - Metals Test Methods and Analytical Procedures, Section 04 - Construction, Section 05 - Petroleum Products, Lubricants, and Fossil Fuels, Section 06 - Paints, Related Coatings, and Aromatics, Section 07 - Textiles, Section 08 - Plastics, Section 09 - Rubber, Section 10 - Electrical Insulation and Electronics, Section 11 - Water and Environmental Technology, Section 12 - Nuclear, Solar, and Geothermal Energy, Section 13 - Medical Devices and Services, Section 14 - General Methods and Instrumentation, Section 15 - General Products, Chemical Specialties, and End Use Products." The index for the fifteen sections is Section 00.
- ASTM standards have a standard format within the "Annual Book of ASTM Standards." According to "Building a Successful Biodiesel Business" by Jon Van Gerpen, Rudy Pruszko, Davis Clements and Brent Shanks, ASTM standards "...all contain the following sections: scope, referenced documents, summary of the test method, significance and use, apparatus, reagents, procedure, precision and bias, and keywords." ASTM standards include measurements in both metric and imperial units where units are given. When International Standards Organization (ISO) or American National Standards Institute (ANSI) standards are referenced, this information is given in the referenced documents section.