Standards Resources: U.S. Standards

  Engineering Resource Center

Note: Patrons interested in using the IHS Markit Engineering Resource Center to locate standards will need to contact the library to request instructions to access this database.

About IHS Markit

IHS Markit is the leading source of information and insight in critical areas that shape today's business landscape. Customers around the world rely on us to address strategic and operational challenges. We bring together the deepest intelligence across the widest set of capital-intensive industries and markets. By connecting data across variables, our analysts and industry specialists present our customers with a richer, highly integrated view of their world.

That is the benefit of The New Intelligence. We’re able to isolate cause and effect, risk and opportunity in new ways that empower our customers to make well-informed decisions with greater confidence. IHS Markit is a dynamic team that includes more than 5,000 analysts, data scientists, financial experts and industry specialists. Our global information expertise spans numerous industries, including leading positions in finance, energy and transportation.

The National Institute of Standards and Technology promotes U.S. innovation and industrial competitiveness by advancing measurement science, standards, and technology in ways that enhance economic security and improve the U.S. quality of life. 

Standard Reference Materials are certified reference materials (CRMs) that can be used to help develop accurate methods of analysis, to calibrate measurement systems used to measure a property at the state-of-the-art limit.

Standard Reference Data cover a broad range of scientific disciplines including atomic and molecular physics, chemical and crystal structures, fluids, material properties, biotechnology, optical character recognition and more. Data products include web applications, personal computer products, site licenses, subscriptions and distributor agreements. The SRD data program includes the Journal of Physical and Chemical Reference Data.

NIST research generates data to work with industry, academic and government systems to advance innovation and improve the quality of life.   A broad spectrum of science and technology data resources are available through a suite of services listed on their pages. 

Search the NIST public data catalog for discovery and access to NIST public data repository resources. Their featured data domains include:

• Information Technology -- including the Dictionary of Algorithms and Data Structures (DADS), an online, publicly accessible dictionary of generally useful algorithms, data structures, algorithmic techniques, archetypal problems, and related definitions. In addition to brief definitions, some entries have links to related entries, links to implementations, and additional information. DADS is meant to be a resource for the practicing programmer, although students and researchers may find it a useful starting point. DADS has fundamental entries in areas such as theory, cryptography and compression, graphs, trees, and searching, for instance, Ackermann's function, quick sort, traveling salesman, big O notation, merge sort, AVL tree, hash table, and Byzantine generals. DADS also has index pages that list entries by area and by type. 
• Mathematics and Statistics -- including the Matrix Market: A visual repository of test data for use in comparative studies of algorithms for numerical linear algebra, featuring nearly 500 sparse matrices from a variety of applications, as well as matrix generation tools and services.
• Manufacturing -- including the NIST CAD Models and STEP Files with PMI: NIST has created a Test System to measure conformance of Computer-Aided Design (CAD) software to American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) standards for Product and Manufacturing Information (PMI), specifically geometric dimensioning and tolerancing (GD&T) information. The test system includes: test case definitions (2D CAD drawings with PMI), CAD models generated from the test cases, STEP files generated from the CAD models, and verification and validation reports.
• Forensics -- including the National Software Reference Library (NSRL) Reference Data Set (RDS - NIST Special Database 28), which collects software from various sources and incorporates file profiles computed from this software into a Reference Data Set (RDS) of information. The RDS can be used by law enforcement, government, and industry organizations to review files on a computer by matching file profiles in the RDS. This alleviates much of the effort involved in determining which files are important as evidence on computers or file systems that have been seized as part of criminal investigations.
• Materials -- including the NIST WWW Structural Ceramics Database (WebSCD - SRD 30), which provides evaluated materials property data for a wide range of advanced ceramics known variously as structural ceramics, engineering ceramics, and fine ceramics. These materials tend to have low mass densities and high strengths and tend to be resistant to corrosion. These characteristics form the basis for applications of these materials in high-temperature, energy-efficient heat exchangers, advanced engine designs, bearings, wear resistant parts, and stable electronic substrates and electronic packaging.The range of materials covers the major series of compounds derived from the ceramic oxide, carbide, nitride, boride, and oxynitride chemical families. The materials are described by specification and characterization information that includes processing details and chemical compositions. Physical characteristics such as density and crystal structure are given in numeric tables. All measured values are evaluated and supported by descriptions of the measurement methods, procedures, and conditions. In all cases, the sources of the data are fully documented in a detailed bibliography.
• Physics and Neutron -- including the Fundamental Physical Constants Searchable Bibliography (SRD 123): This bibliographic database contains citations for the most important theoretical and experimental publications relevant to the fundamental constants and closely related precision measurements published since the mid 1980s, but also includes many older papers of particular interest, dating back to the early 1800s.
• Advanced Communications -- including Radio Frequency Measurements for Selected Manufacturing and Industrial Environments, which uses a PN Code Sounding methodology. The resulting measurements include complex impulse responses and spectrum analysis traces. Complex impulse responses were validated using both ray tracing and an outdoor two-ray reference facility. This data is meant to serve as a reference of how radio waves at 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz propagate in industrial environments.
• Chemistry -- This includes the NIST Chemistry WebBook (SRD 69), which provides users with easy access to chemical and physical property data for chemical species through the internet. The data provided in the site are from collections maintained by the NIST Standard Reference Data Program and outside contributors. Data in the WebBook system are organized by chemical species. The WebBook system allows users to search for chemical species by various means. Once the desired species has been identified, the system will display data for the species. Data include thermochemical properties of species and reactions, thermophysical properties of species, and optical, electronic and mass spectra.