The creation of functional standards to streamline ASTM standards in committee E33 on building and environmental acoustics

Abstract

ASTM E33 standards are in wide-spread use in North America in building and environmental acoustics. Some of these standards have been in existence in one form or another for over 60 years. There are now 55 standards within the E33 committee all created by different volunteer authors at different times. Each of these standards is periodically updated by other volunteers. While efforts have been made to keep agreement among these standards, subtle and not so subtle differences creep up in similar measurements, calculations, and specifications. A small working committee has identified 21 topics that are candidates for consolidation into “functional” standards. These functional standards will be used similarly to a computer program function and can be “called” from any other standard. The hope is that this will remove inconsistences among the standards and make the standards easier to read. The current status and future plans of this project will be shared.