ASA ACTIVITY IN THE NUCLEAR STANDARDS FIELD

My assignment today is to tell you what ASA is doing in the nuclear standards field. I'll begin by answering the question \"Who needs nuclear standards and why do they need them?\" The purpose of standards in general is to help industry do its job efficiently by providing a forum for agreement on matters of common interest. Once agreement is reached, a standard can be established and published. This facilitates manufacturing and procurement by reducing the multiplicity of designs or specifications in a given field. Again, standards are useful as criteria for quality control and in some cases, for regulation by governmental bodies and insurance companies. They provide a common language in the industry, both nationally and internationally. Standards do one other important thing. They eliminate a lot of repetitive effort by providing building blocks for the designer or other user of standards. In the nuclear field, standards can serve all these purposes. One of their most important uses, at least in my opinion, is in the field of nuclear safety which is currently a highly controversial subject and one which is not well enough understood by the public. Standards in this field should provide reassurance to the public, and incidentally should enable industry to share with government bodies responsible for deciding what is and is not safe in nuclear activities.