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6-Standards for Metrology:
How Machine Tools, Measuring Instruments, and Workpieces are Specified and Evaluated

Edward P. Morse, University of North Carolina – Charlotte

Monday, October 10, 2022
1:30PM – 5:30PM (PDT USA)


This tutorial will discuss standards for machine tools, measuring instruments, and the geometric specification (tolerances) of workpieces.  We will begin with a discussion of the standardization process and the committee structure for standards within the US, as well as parallel standards committees within ISO. We will then cover the primary standards in use by US industry. For each standard or series of standards we will identify the primary coverage of the standards, the specification or verification methods, and recent changes within the standards. The tutorial will conclude with an in-depth exploration of one or two recent standards, focusing on how they reflect the current thinking on specification, uncertainty, decision rules for acceptance, and verification.

Main standards addressed in this tutorial (by committee): ASME B5, B46, B89, Y14, and ISO TC39, TC213


Edward Morse was awarded his PhD from Cornell University in January of 2000. His dissertation work was on the mathematical modeling of tolerancing for assembly.  He departed Cornell in October of 1999 to join the faculty at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte as an assistant professor.  He is now the Director of UNC Charlotte’s Center for Precision Metrology and is the Norvin Kennedy Dickerson Jr. Distinguished Professor of Mechanical Engineering.  His current research interests include large scale metrology, assembly modeling and analysis, machine tool metrology, uncertainty estimation and analysis, tolerance standards and modeling, and various aspects of computational metrology.

Ed is a member of several ASME standards committees for tolerancing and metrology, and is chair of ASME’s B89 committee on Dimensional Metrology.  He is also a Subject Matter Expert (SME) representing the United States in ISO Technical Committee 213 on Geometric Product Specification and Verification.