ABSTRACT
Once the overall test plan has been agreed upon (by approval of the project technical plan), the construction plans for the test article can proceed. Control of specific te sts described by the overall plan is exercised by individual test procedures. Many of these are standardized tests, such as those published by the American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM) (2), and the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) (3). These can be identified in the project files by number and revision, since they are readily available for future reference. Other procedures must be written especially for each test. Some may be very open-ended and must be developed as the test proceeds. The usual practice in this case would be to write a test procedure with only those steps and acceptance criteria that are known beforehand. The idea is to specify as much of the detail of the test as is known at the time, then amend the procedure as necessary to add testing. Obviously, in a situation where the phenomena are being characterized, there is no acceptance criteria. This is not a performance or qualification test to be passed or failed. Therefore, the procedures should only require the test data to be recorded in some prescribed format on data sheets or in a laboratory notebook.
