Converting British/European Standards to American/ASTM Standards

[RDR89]

Hi all, this may or may not be the appropriate place to post this but I wanted to see if anyone has any experience with converting British or European standards to American standards for materials, testing, etc. My company has some products from our friends across the pond that they would like to use on projects in the US, but naturally all their references are British/European. I know its not always a direct comparison.

 

[EdStainless]

There are a number of cross references available.
Many of your suppliers could also help with this as they may already be certifying to both systems.
There will be some cases where you will have to reference chemistries and properties to figure out what specs fit.


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P.E. Metallurgy, consulting work welcomed

 

[RDR89]

Thanks @EdStainless... they aren't certifying to both systems, that's why I'm looking to see what my options are. Have you done this type of "conversion" before?

 

[desertfox]

Hi RDR89

I have some limited experience on this relating to pressure vessels and I would say that it’s near impossible to get a direct conversion we ran into problems with hardness values, stress allowances, materials of construction, welding etc. My advice would be to accept the standard that it’s manufactured in accordance with.

“Do not worry about your problems with mathematics, I assure you mine are far greater.” Albert Einstein

 

[RDR89]

@desertfox, thanks for that input! Out of curiosity, how did yall go about trying to reconcile them?

 

[desertfox]

Hi RDR89

Well we started by looking at the design stresses first and again there were slight differences in both the formula and results of stresses but not that great. The main problem was trying to reconcile the materials and here was where the problem lay because when we looked into it ASME and the EN standards process treated the materials differently in terms of heat treatment, stress relieving etc. The main problem really was that the vessels were already made to one standard and we were tasked trying to fit them into another standard particularly when rework was required.
In the end we did what we could but all parties had to agree on certain on differences between the specifications and the actual hardware.
What are your components ?


“Do not worry about your problems with mathematics, I assure you mine are far greater.” Albert Einstein

 

[RDR89]

@desertfox I gotcha... that sounds very similar to where I am right now. We're wanting to use polymer resin chambers to act as foundations for some equipment, but they are all certified to UK/eurocode standards.

 

[desertfox]

Hi RDR89

Well I don’t know a lot resin chambers lol, all I can suggest is list the differences and get some agreement among the parties, if they can’t agree then suggest they buy some to the specs they want.

“Do not worry about your problems with mathematics, I assure you mine are far greater.” Albert Einstein