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Distributor's Link Magazine Fall 2019 / Vol 42 No4

38 THE DISTRIBUTOR’S

38 THE DISTRIBUTOR’S LINK Salim Brahimi Director of Engineering Technology INDUSTRIAL FASTENERS INSTITUTE 6363 Oak Tree Boulevard, Independence, OH 44131 TEL 216-241-1482 FAX 216-241-5901 EMAIL sbrahimi@indfast.org WEB www.indfast.org KEEP YOUR FASTENER STANDARDS LIBRARY CURRENT If you are in the business of making, selling, buying or using fasteners, you must always have access to the latest revisions of the technical standards and data governing these products. Your customers and quality auditors expect you to keep your library of standards current. Ignorance is no excuse! Not infrequently, I speak to people in the industry who tell me, sometimes sheepishly, “yeah, I have this ‘older’ IFI sitting on my book shelf. I don’t know which edition, but it’s so beat up because I use it so often. It’s a great book! Do you think I should get the latest one?” My response to this well intended inquiry is always, “You should know that none of the standards in your book is current. They have all been revised! So yes, definitely; you should get the latest edition of the IFI Book!” Books of Fastener Standards have been published by the Industrial Fasteners Institute since IFI published the first edition in 1941. The “IFI Book” is considered a “BIBLE” for the fastener industry as an authoritative reference for fastener specifications and technical data. BUT, did you know that nearly half of the 91 standards included in the 9th Edition were revised between publications of the 9th Edition (2014) and the 2018 Edition (aka 10th Edition)! There were also two significant new standards (i.e., that did not exist at the time of the 9th Edition publication) that were included in the 2018 Edition. Now, not to sound too alarmist, but you should also know since publication of the 2018 Edition one year ago, already 9 of the 92 standards included in the book have been revised, one of them, ASTM A370 has been revised three times! Some revisions are minor, or simply re-approval of the existing standard, but a few revisions are significant. For example, ASTM F3125/F3125M-2015a the material standard governing structural bolts (included in the 2018 IFI Edition), has since been revised by ASTM Committee F16 on Fasteners to ASTM F3125/F3125M-2018, and another revision is already in the works. The ASTM F16 committee made several significant modifications and clarifications, notably in relation to coatings and the requirement for rotational capacity testing. If you are in the structural bolting business and you do not have access to the latest revision of this standard, you are not only putting yourself at a serious disadvantage, but you also risk costly remediation resulting from unintended non-compliance. There is a good reason why standards (ASTM, ASME, SAE, ISO, IFI) are updated and revised on a continuous basis. These consensus standards are living documents. They provide a technical blueprint for producers, sellers, buyers and users of fasteners. To be effective, the standards must reflect the “state of the art” as it is today, not as it was in the past. Consensus standards organizations, in this case, ASTM, ASME and SAE, require that their technical committees systematically review their standards every five years, and to make revisions when necessary. TECHNICAL ARTICLE CONTINUED ON PAGE 118

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