SAE launches historical standards online

More than 5,000 historical automotive and aerospace standards are now available from SAE International.

Part of SAE International's website enhancements, these standards are previous versions of technical standards that have since been revised. They are being sold individually in print and electronic formats.

Now when visitors search specific standards on the SAE International Web site (http://standards.sae.org/), the results will display all available prior versions of each standard, noting when they were published. Including access to historical standards is part of an overall enhancement of SAE International's Web site and online experience.

Historical standards can provide important information to all mobility engineering professionals. The ability to see the evolution of a standard provides valuable insight into the development and design of specific parts, components, systems or vehicles. This not only gives engineers an historical perspective on a given standard, but allows them to track general technology trends and patterns over time.

For maintenance engineers, historical standards provide critical access to the specifications required to maintain products with long life cycles. In such cases, engineers need to have the standard that was in place at the time the design was implemented so that they know how to repair or replace particular parts, components, or systems. Historical standards also can be used to train and develop an educated, well-informed engineering staff, especially in organizations where senior engineers retire without having fully transferred their accumulated knowledge.

For more information on the newly available historical standards, visit http://standards.sae.org/.

SAE International is a global association of more than 128,000 engineers and related technical experts in the aerospace, automotive and commercial-vehicle industries. SAE International's core competencies are life-long learning and voluntary consensus standards development.