3.1 Industry Drawing Standards
D.M. Donner
Drawings function as a contract between the engineers who designed the part and the manufacturers who are tasked with creating the part. All information needed to manufacture a part must be communicated in written form in a manner that communicates subtle and complicated information. As you may imagine, there are many difficulties in executing this task. For example, what unit of measurement is used? Metric or Inch? How much error may be allowed in manufacture while still performing reliably? What material is the part made from? Has the part been revised over the years, and do you have the latest revision? In an effort to standardize this process, industries have adopted universal standards created by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI), which is centered around the inch unit of measure and is predominant in North America, and the International Organization of Standardization (ISO), which uses the metric standard and is used extensively in Europe.
A few of the standards that pertain to this chapter are as follows:
- ASME Y14.1 Decimal Inch Drawing Sheet Size and Format (2020b). Sheet sizes for printing and layout purposes are defined. Metric version of this standard is ASME Y14.1M
- ASME Y14.2 Line Conventions and Lettering (2015)
- ASME Y14.3 Orthographic and Pictorial Views (2013b)
- ASME Y14.5 Dimensioning and Tolerancing (2019)
- ASME B46.1 Surface Texture (2020a)
In the text that follows, we will provide a basic knowledge of technical drawing content that will allow you to get started.
a private, non-profit organization that manages the U.S. voluntary standards and conformity assessment system
an independent, non-governmental organization that creates voluntary, consensus-based international standards