ASTM International has embarked on HF "standards" development under subcommittee D18.026, which is part of its D18-Soil and Rock Committee. Annual membership fee of $75 provides access to the committee/subcommittee; members are then free to participate in any or all of the 12 focus areas that the subcommittee leadership has recognized as worthy of standards-forming.

 

Members can participate as standards writers, reviewers, or simply as advisors; each paying member has a vote that he/she can use to either further, or stall, progress (per ASTM policy, all negative votes have to be resolved before standards-forming can proceed-thus, these standards could take a long time before they are finalized).

 

These focus areas have volunteer chairpersons and members assigned to them, and the latter hold periodic conference calls with their teams to discuss scope/progress of standards; it is believed that ASTM's desire is to have draft standards in these areas ready in time for its June conclave in Indianapolis (the inaugural conclave was held in January in Jacksonville, FL; several industry colleagues, API representatives, and I attended that event).  John "Jack" Germaine of MIT (jgermain@mit.edu) is the D18.026 subcommittee lead, and Jill Di Cicco (jdicicco@astm.org) is the person whom handles D18.026 subcommittee volunteer recruitment-after receiving acknowledgement of payment and assignment of member number by ASTM, Jill is to be notified of interest in focus area participation.