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Standards

Resources

  • Engineering Standards Worksheet available here - Templates and Forms
    • Submit by posting to Repository - working/Reports/Design Report + Poster

As we work on new or existing projects, we often deal with a variety of standards. These are often 'hidden' because the standards are embedded in other things. Examples are provided below to help make this clearer.

There are many examples of standards that affect our project work. A recent web article from Electronic Design cited 10 standards organizations that affect engineers: http://electronicdesign.com/communications/10-standards-organizations-affect-you-whether-you-know-it-or-not

This website lists 181 standards organizations that students can reference: http://www.standardslearn.org/trainingcourse.aspx - a list of ANSI- accredited standard developers. A number of organizations publish standards including:

Many of these are offered as published documents. The RPI library (and their website) offer access to a number of these publications.
https://guides.lib.rpi.edu/subjects/engineering

Some standards are internationally defined and 'agreed to'.

Others have become defacto standards due to many years of unofficial but common use.

A search engine for standards is provided by National Standards Network

IEEE Standards Education web site provides helpful information for understanding the role of standards in engineering and technology:

Electrical / Computer System Engineering

Examples of things that might be considered de facto standards in the software field include:
  • Linux distributions
    • Ubuntu
    • Debian
    • Red Hat
    • SUSE
  • UNIX distributions
    • BSD
Examples of internationally defined software standards include:
  • Various compilers such as:
    • Fortran
    • ANSI C
    • C++
  • For web-based implementations
    • W3
    • HTML
    • CSS (style sheets)
  • For software, there may be existing coding and documentation standards, for example:
    • PEP8 - Python coding standard

See Computers__Software__Hardware__Networking also

Standards also may be defined for various electronic aspects and may sometimes include a software aspect/component such as a protocol:
  • Communications
    • Ethernet
    • wifi
    • RS232
    • RS485
    • USB
    • I2C
    • BlueTooth
    • Firewire (sometimes referred to as IEEE-488)
    • Serial communications baud rates
  • Power
    • Household voltage / frequency. Although this varies by country, there is usually a standard for each. For the US, this is 120VAC nominal at 60 hertz. Other countries may use 240VAC nominal and/or 50 hertz.
  • Interfaces
    • TTL compatibility - For interfacing among TTL devices, the standard voltage levels are defined and all TTL compatible chips must conform to be interoperable. For example logic 0 = 0 volts and logic 1 = 5 volts.
    • Batteries - these are now defined with a selection of standard physical sizes and voltages.
      • AA, AAA, C, D = 1.5V
      • size for 9V batteries - called by multiple part numbers / designations but 'standardized'
  • Physical
    • wire gauge & current carrying capacity
      • may be referenced by other standards or codes, ex: the National Electric Code

Mechanical Engineering

Industrial System Engineering

Suggestions / recommendations are welcome for this department from faculty, staff and students!

Materials Engineering

The Ashby classification method has become widely adopted.

Robotic Machinery Safety Requirements

  • A good overview of safety issues is provided in the article
  • ANSI/RIA for Industrial Robots and Robot Systems — Safety Requirements

Regulations

In some projects, regulations/laws create design requirements/constraints.

Occupational Safety & Health Administration (OSHA)

Useful Information

  • Military, DoD, Federal, NASA, DOE, and Government specifications, standards, handbooks, and publications:
    http://everyspec.com/

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