Research Guides: ME 263: Introduction To Mechanical Engineering Design, Innovation And Entrepreneurship: Standards

Standards

According to ASME: A standard is "a set of technical definitions and guidelines, “how to” instructions for designers, manufacturers, and users. Standards promote safety, reliability, productivity, and efficiency in almost every industry that relies on engineering components or equipment."

Compliance with standards in the design process is voluntary for companies, however, it may become mandatory if written into contractual business obligations and/or adopted by federal, state, or local regulations. Also, market conditions encourage many companies to comply with standards, even in cases where they are not mandatory.

It is important to have a general idea of the published standards that may impact your project early in the design process, when requirements are being established. You may dive deeper into standards during the detailed design phase.

Select Standards Databases @ Purdue:

Techstreet Enterprise This link opens in a new window
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Provides access to one of the world's largest collections of industry codes and standards, plus web-based workflow tools. The Purdue Libraries subscription currently includes the following collections:

AASHTO
ACI (ACI 318, others available upon request)
AHAM
ANS
ASHRAE
ASME (including BPVC)
BSI (selected)
ICC
ISO (selected)
NFPA (Fire)
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ASTM Compass
A vast collection of industry-leading standards and technical engineering information. The Library covers a broad range of engineering disciplines, including aerospace, biomedical, chemical, civil, environmental, geological, health and safety, industrial, materials science, mechanical, nuclear, petroleum, soil science, and solar engineering. Provides access to active standards, as well as historical standards (2000-present).

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IEEE Xplore
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IEEE Xplore is a digital library providing full text access to the world's highest quality technical literature in electrical engineering, computer science, and electronics.

More Standards Resources:

Primer on Engineering Standards by Maan Jawad; Owen R. Greulich
ISBN: 0791860345
Publication Date: 2014-07-30
Standards play a very important part in the engineering world. They supplement the design process by guiding the designer or user to ensure consistent products with safe and reliable operation. Understanding and complying with pertinent standards helps to ensure a successful design, fabrication, and operation of a product. This book introduces the concept of standards and their impact and value. Chapter 1 gives a brief introduction to the general concepts of procedures, rules, standards, regulations, codes, and jurisdictional requirements. Chapter 2 discusses Engineering Standards developed by the consensus process. Limited consensus standards are presented in Chapter 3 and jurisdictional standards are presented in Chapter 4. Development of Standards is briefly discussed in Chapter 5, and Chapter 6 discusses types of standards. In Chapter 7 the need and processes for exemptions from existing standards are explained. Chapter 8 identifies characteristics of a good standard. There are tens, perhaps hundreds of thousands of engineering standards worldwide, covering every imaginable subject related to engineering. Listing them all would be a monumental undertaking and this book, by necessity, covers only a small portion of them. The appendices at the end of this book provide assistance in identifying a few of these engineering standards, who developed and maintains them, and contact information to help the reader obtain further information.