Federal Specifications, Technical Committee

The Federal Specifications Technical Committee on Organic Plastics has prepared materials specifications 32) which are largely the counterparts of the ASTM specifications in so far as property requirements are concerned. This committee has also developed specifications for various plastic products 32). In addition to these, there is a large number of other federal specifications involving end items made in whole or in part of plastic materials. These are indexed annually (33). 

ISO, foimded in 1947 with headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland, is a worldwide federation of 110 national standards bodies, represented, at present, by one official member for each participating coimtry. A member body of ISO is the national body most representative of standardization in its country. The American National Standards Institute (ANSI) is the U.S. member body. ISO has about 200 established technical committees (TO) to address specific areas the technical committee which represents the field of plastics and semifinished plastic products is TC61 on Plastics. ISO TC61 currently has 26 participating (P) member bodies (Table 11.14). In addition, there are 42 observer (O) member bodies. lEC, founded in 1906, is now comprised of about 50 national electrotechnical committees. 

In USA, there are ASTM standards (Committees C 24 and D14), SAE, US Federal specifications, MIL specifications (for military applications such as aerospace). Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE), several professional organizations have also enacted standards, for instance. Technical Association for Pulp and Paper Industries (TAPPI), Pressure Sensitive Tape Council (PSTC) and others. 

The Safety Instrumented Systems (SIS) and critical alarms assigned a Class 1 include those that have been mandated as such by state or federal agencies an in-house technical safety review committee HAZOP studies and specific alarms deemed critical by operations supervisors. All of these Safety Instrumented Systems and alarms are on a regular prooftesting schedule. 

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