Sec.

PART 200-POLICIES, SERVICES, PROCEDURES, AND FEES

§ 200.100 Statutory functions.

(a) The National Institute of Standards & Technology (NIST) has been assigned the following functions (15 U.S.C. 271 et seq.):

(1) The custody, maintenance, and development of the national standards of measurement, and the provision of means and methods for making measurements consistent with those standards, including the comparison of standards used in scientific investigations, engineering, manufacturing, commerce, and educational institutions with the standards adopted or recognized by the Government.

(2) The determination of physical constants and properties of materials when such data are of great importance to scientific or manufacturing interests and are not to be obtained with sufficient accuracy elsewhere.

(3) The development of methods for testing materials, mechanisms, and structures, and the testing of materials, supplies, and equipment, including

items purchased for use of Government departments and independent

establishments.

(4) Cooperation with other governmental agencies and with private organizations in the establishment of standard practices, incorporated in codes and specifications.

(5) Advisory service to Government agencies on scientific and technical problems.

(6) Invention and development of devices to serve special needs of the Government.

(b) The calibration and testing activities of NIST stem from the functions in paragraphs (a) (1) and (3) of this section. NIST provides the central basis within the United States for a complete and consistent system of measurement; coordinates that system, and the measurement systems of other nations; and furnishes essential services leading to accurate and uniform physical measurements throughout this Nation's scientific community, industry, and commerce.

(c) The provision of standard reference materials for sale to the public is assigned to the Office of Standard Reference Materials of the National Measurement Laboratory, NIST. That Office evaluates the requirements of science and industry for carefully characterized reference materials, stimulates efforts of NIST to develop methods for production of needed reference materials and directs their production and distribution. For further information on standard reference materials see Subchapter B, Chapter II, Part 230, of this title.

§ 200.101 Measurement research.

(a) The NIST staff continually reviews the advances in science and the trends in technology, examines the measurement potentialities of newly discovered physical phenomena, and uses these to devise and improve standards, measuring devices, and measurement techniques. As new requirements appear, there are continual shifts of program emphasis to meet the most urgent needs for the measurement of additional quantities,

extended ranges, or improved accuracies.

(b) The basic research and development activities of NIST are primarily funded by direct appropriations, and are aimed at meeting broad general needs. NIST may also undertake investigations or developments to meet some specialized physical measurement problem of another Government agency, industrial group, or manufacturing firm, using funds supplied by the requesting organization.

§ 200.102 Types of calibration and test services.

(a) NIST has developed instrumentation and techniques for realizing standards for the seven base units of the International System of Units, as agreed upon by the General Conference of Weights and Measures. Reference standards have been established not only for these seven base units, but also for many derived quantities and their multiples and submultiples. Such reference standards, or equivalent working standards, are used to calibrate laboratory and plant standards for other organizations. Accuracy is maintained by stability checks, by comparison with the standards of other national and international laboratories, and by the exploration of alternative techniques as a means of reducing possible systematic error.

(b) Calibrations for many types of instruments and ranges of physical quantities are described in the NIST Special Publication 250 (SP 250). (See § 200.115 for details relating to the description of service items and listing of fees.)

(c) In recent years NIST has offered to the public new measurement services called measurement assurance programs. These programs are designed for laboratories whose measurement process involves the calibration of other standards. A measurement assurance program is a measurement quality control process. By use of carefully designed redundant measurements and measurements made on NIST transport standards a total uncertainty of the laboratories measurement process can be determined by NIST. The results of these tests are then reported to the customer as un

certainties of the customer's measurements relative to national standards.

(d) Special measurements not listed in SP 250 may be made upon request. These might involve unusual physical quantities, upper or lower extremes of range, higher levels of accuracy, fast response speeds, short durations, broader ranges of associated parameters, or special environmental conditions. Such inquiries should describe clearly the measurement desired. Indication of the scientific or economic basis for the requirements to be satisfied will be helpful in determining future NIST programs. Fees for work accepted will be based upon actual costs incurred.

(e) The principal emphasis of NIST is on those calibrations and other tests requiring such accuracy as can be obtained only by direct comparison with its standards.

(f) Other services which may be obtained include:

(1) Tests of measuring instruments to determine compliance with specifications or claims, when the evaluation is critical in national scientific or technical operations, and when suitable facilities are not available elsewhere; and

(2) Referee tests in important cases when clients are unable to agree upon the method of measurement, the results of tests, or the interpretation of these results, but have agreed in advance in writing to accept and abide by the findings of NIST.

(g) NIST reserves the right to decline any request for services if the work would interfere with other activities deemed by the Director to be of greater importance. In general, measurement services are not provided when available from commercial laboratories.

(h) Suggestions will be offered on measurement techniques and on other sources of assistance on calibration or measurement problems when the equipment and personnel of NIST are unable to undertake the work. The National Conference of Standards Laboratories issues a Directory of Standards Laboratories in the United States which perform calibration work (obtainable from NCSL Secretariat, c/o National Institute of Standards &

Technology, Boulder, CO 80303). Those laboratories which perform testing are listed in the ASTM Directory of Testing Laboratories, Commercial and Institutional. (Directory available from the Amercian Society for Testing

and Materials, 1916 Race Street, Philadelphia, PA 19103.) Similar listings appear in buyer's guides for commercial products and in technical journals concerned with physical measurement.

§ 200.103 Consulting and advisory services.

(a) In areas of its special competence, NIST offers consulting and advisory services on various problems related to measurement, e.g., details of design and construction, operational aspects, unusual or extreme conditions, methods of statistical control of the measurement process, automated acquisition of laboratory data, and data reduction and analysis by computer. Brief consultation may be obtained at no charge; the fee for extended effort will be based upon actual costs incurred. The services outlined in this paragraph do not include services in connection with legal proceedings not involving the United States as a named party, nor to testimony or the production of data, information, or records in such legal proceedings which is governed by the policies and procedures set forth in Subchapter H, Chapter II, Part 275, of this title.

(b) To enhance the competence of standards laboratory personnel, NIST conducts at irregular intervals several group seminars on the precision measurement of specific types of physical quantities, offering the opportunity of laboratory observation and informal discussion. A brochure describing the current series of seminars can be obtained by writing the Office of Measurement Services, National Institute of Standards & Technology, Washington, DC 20234.

§ 200.104 Standard reference materials.

Often the performance of a device or structure can be evaluated at the user's laboratory by comparing its response to unknown materials with its response to a stable, homogeneous ref

erence specimen which has been wellcharacterized with regard to the physical or chemical property being measured. For information regarding carefully characterized materials see Subchapter B, Chapter II, Part 230, of this title. The Office of Standard Reference Materials in the NIST National Measurement Laboratory administers a program to provide many types of well-characterized materials that are needed to calibrate a measurement system or to produce scientific data that can be readily referred to a common base. NIST SP 260 is a catalog of Standard Reference Materials available from NIST.

§ 200.105 Standard reference data.

Data on the physical and chemical properties of the large variety of substances used in science and technology need to be compiled and evaluated for application in research, development, engineering design, and commerce. The Office of Standard Reference Data (OSRD) in the NIST National Measurement Laboratory provides coordination of and access to a number of governmental and nongovernmental data centers throughout this country and the world which are responsive to user needs for data. The OSRD'S present program is assembled under a series of tasks which include data for application in energy, environment and health, industrial process design, materials durability, and resource recovery. The subject data are disseminated as hard-copy information in the Journal of Physical and Chemical Reference Data, published jointly with the American Chemical Society and the American Institute of Physics, in the National Standard Reference Data System reports as the NSRDS-NIST series, and as NIST special reports. Magnetic tapes of data on selected topics are also issued through the OSRD and the National Technical Information Service. A newsletter, "Reference Data Report," is issued bimonthly describing current activities. Information concerning the above is available OSRD.

upon request from the

§ 200.106 Publications.

1

Publications provide the primary means of communicating the results of the NIST programs and services to its varied technical audiences, as well as to the general public. NIST issues some fifteen categories of publications including three periodicals, ten nonperiodicals series, interagency reports, and papers in the journals and books of professional organizations, technological associations, and commercial publications. The calibration services, standard reference materials and related measurement services along with changes and fees are published in two Special Publications (SP's) and their supplements. These are SP 250 "Calibration and Related Measurement Services of the National Institute of Standards & Technology" 1 and SP 260 "NIST Standard Reference Materials Catalog." A complete catalog of all publications by NIST authors is issued annually as a supplement to SP 305 "Publications of the National Institute of Standards & Technology." Announcements and listings of recent NIST publications and services are published in each issue of the bimonthly "NIST Journal of Research" 2 and the NIST monthly magazine, "Dimensions/NIST" 2. Complete citations to NIST publications, along with information on availability are published bimonthly in the "NIST Publications Newsletter", available free from the Technical Information and Publications Division, National Institute of Standards & Technology, Washington, DC 20234. NIST publications are also announced (with abstracts) in "Government Reports Announcements and Index" published every two weeks by the National Technical Information Service (NTIS), Springfield, Virginia

'Single copies available free from the National Institute of Standards & Technology, Washington, DC 20234.

2 For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, DC 20402, for a subscription price. The annual subscription price for the NIST Journal of Research on the date of the publication of these regulations is $13.00 and for Dimensions/NIST it is $11.00. Prices, however, for these publications are subject to change without notice.

(a) Technical services. The NIST radio stations WWV at Fort Collins, Colorado, and WWVH on the island of Kauai, Hawaii, broadcast a number of technical services continuously night and day. These services are:

(1) Standard radio frequencies, 2.5, 5, 10, 15, and 20, MHz (WWV) and 2.5, 5, 10, and 15 MHz (WWVH); (2) standard time signals; (3) time intervals; (4) UTI corrections; (5) standard audio frequencies; (6) standard musical pitch; (7) a slow time code; (8) Omega Navigation System status reports; (9) geophysical alerts; and (10) marine storm warnings. NIST also broadcasts time and frequency signals from its low frequency station, WWVB, also located at Fort Collins, Colorado.

(b) Time announcements. Once per minute voice announcements are made from WWV and WWVH. The two stations are distinguished by a female voice from WWVH and a male voice from WWV. The WWVH announcement occurs first, at 15 seconds before the minute, while the WWV announcement occurs at 72 seconds before the minute. Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) is used in these announcements.

(c) Time corrections. The UTC time scale operates on atomic frequency, but by means of step adjustments is made to approximate the astronomical UTI scale. It may disagree from UTI by as much as 0.9 second before step adjustments of exactly 1 second are made. These adjustments, or leap seconds are required about once per year and will usually be made on December 31 or June 30. For those who need astronomical time more accurately than 0.9 second, a correction to UTC is encoded by the use of double ticks after

The annual subscription rate at the date of the publication of these regulations for this service is $275.00, North American Continent, $375.00 all others.

the start of each minute. The first through the eighth seconds ticks will indicate a "plus" correction, and from the ninth through the 16th a "minus" correction. The correction is determined by counting the number of double ticks. For example, if the first, second, and third ticks are doubled, the correction is "plus" 0.3 second. If the ninth, 10th, 11th, and 12th ticks are doubled, the correction is "minus" 0.4 second.

(d) Standard time intervals. An audio pulse (5 cycles of 1000 Hz on WWV and 6 cycles of 1200 Hz on WWVH), resembling the ticking of a clock, occurs each second of the minute except on the 29th and 59th seconds. Each of these 5-millisecond second pulses occur within a 40-millisecond period, wherein all other modulation (voice or tone) is removed from the carrier. These pulses begin 10 milliseconds after the modulation interruption. A long pulse (0.8 second) marks the beginning of each minute.

(e) Standard frequencies. All carrier and audio frequencies occur at their nominal values according to the International System of Units (SI). For periods of 45-second duration, either 500Hz or 600-Hz audio tones are broadcast in alternate minutes during most of each hour. A 440-Hz tone, the musical pitch A above middle C, is broadcast once per hour near the beginning of the hour.

(f) Accuracy and stability. The time and frequency broadcasts are controlled by the NIST atomic frequency standards, which realize the internationally defined cesium resonance frequency with an accuracy of 1 part in 10 13. The frequencies transmitted by WWV and WWVH are held stable to better than ±2 parts in 10" at all times. Deviations at WWV are normally less than 1 part in 10 12 from day to day. Incremental frequency adjustments not exceeding 1 part in 10 are made at WWV and WWVH as necessary. Changes in the propagation medium (causing Doppler effect, diurnal shifts, etc.) result in fluctuations in the carrier frequencies as received which may be very much greater than the uncertainties described above.

12

(g) Slow time code. A modified IRIG H time code occurs continuously on a

100-Hz subcarrier. The format is 1 pulse per second with a 1-minute time frame. It gives day of the year, hours, and minutes in binary coded decimal form.

(h) Omega announcements. Omega Navigation System status reports are broadcast in voice from WWV at 16 minutes after the hour and from WWVH at 47 minutes after the hour. The international Omega Navigation System is a very low frequency (VLF) radio navigation aid operating in the 10 to 14 kHz frequency band. Eight stations are in operation around the world. Omega, like other radio navigation systems, is subject to signal degradation caused by ionospheric disturbances at high latitudes. The Omega announcements on WWV and WWVH are given to provide users with immeIdiate notification of such events and other information on the status of the Omega system.

(i) Geophysical alerts. These occur in voice at the 18th minute of each hour from WWV. They point out outstanding events which are in process, followed by a summary of selected solar and geophysical events in the past 24 hours and a forecast for the next 24 hours. They are provided by the Space Environment Laboratory, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Boulder, CO 80303.

(j) Marine storm information. Weather information about major storms in the Atlantic and eastern North Pacific are broadcast in voice from WWV at 8, 9, and 10 minutes after each hour. Similar storm warnings covering the eastern and central North Pacific are given from WWVH at 48, 49, and 50 minutes after each hour. An additional segment (at 11 minutes after the hour on WWV and at 51 minutes on WWVH) may be used when there are unusually widespread storm conditions. The brief messages are designed to tell mariners of storm threats in their areas. If there are no warnings in the designated areas, the broadcasts will so indicate. The ocean areas involved are those for which the U.S. has warning responsibility under international agreement. The regular times of issue by the National Weather Service are 0500, 1100, 1700, and 2300 UTC for WWV and 0000, 0600,

50-047 0-91--12