PGE 333T - Engineering Communication

Members of the class may find themselves encountering less familiar types of material.  Sometimes a lucky Internet search will reveal the needed text but industry standards, for example, are usually not freely available.  Also, even freely available technical materials government sometimes seem to be hidden away or can be difficult to interpret.   

Industry Standards:

UT-Austin's subscriptions include ASTM, IEEE, ASME, and ACI.  Those offered through the Accuris interface require registration before use and some require special software.  

Agencies of the U.S. federal government have increasingly gone to using industry standards as their standards.

There's more about standards in this guide: 

U.S Federal Regulations:

are published in the Federal Register and codified in the Code of Federal Regulations.  Both are available through these databases:

Regulatory material may also be published and available at the website of the issuing agency.

Patents:

The Engineering Library is a designated U.S. Patent and Trademark Resource Center.  We can help with finding patent information and --- for searching existing patents --- especially recommend:

• Espacenet, the site of the European Patent Office.
• Google Patents.

Also, we have a guide on searching for patent information:

• Using Patent Databases and Finding Patents

Reports / Rulings / Enforcements:

Reports of interest for this class are often reports from agencies of the U.S. federal government are often posted freely on the Internet and may be found with Google (or like) search.  If this fails, try next going to the website of the agency responsible for the report.  Information at the site may also help with knowing whether a report has been issued.  For example:

• CSB: U.S. Chemical Safety Board.
• Occupational Safety and Health Administration, especially OSHA Enforcement.
• National Transportation Safety Board.