Measures for Progress: A History of the National Bureau of Standards

TESTING GOVERNMENT MATERIALS 125
Government, sharply increased Bureau testing. The transfer to the Bureau
of the Geological Survey materials program occurred less than a month later.
The two events coincided with a Government building boom just getting under
way, and Dr. Stratton with his enormous interest in the artifacts of commerce
saw for the Bureau an opportunity for research in the widest sense, in the
instruments, materials, and products of American industry.
The principal structural materials that the Bureau began testing were
cement, clays, lime, structural iron and steel, and protective coatings. Mis-
cellaneous materials included Government housekeeping items ranging from
rubberbands and rubber belting to paper, ink, paints, textiles, and cordage.
Initially limited to the determination of their physical, chemical, and me-
chanical properties, the tests soon raised problems of their manufacture and
performance, requiring full scale investigations. What began as simple test-
ing soieiy for the information of Government agencies in many instances be-
came programs of product research, necessitating close cooperation with the
industries and trade associations involved.
While not entirely representative of the development in each of the
materials investigated, a brief account of the Bureau's work on cement is
illustrative.
In 1911 the cement laboratories of the Bureau tested over 23,900
samples, representing almost 2½ million barrels of cement purchased for
Government construction projects. The sampling required 521,000 physical
tests, for fineness, specific gravity, tensile strength, and time of setting. These
tests did little more than determine whether the samples met current Govern.
ment specifications. In many instances the specifications were far from clear
or consistent, and nowhere did the Bureau find any two Government agencies
purchasing cement upon the same specifications.
Early in 1912 the Bureau called manufacturers and Federal engi-
neers to the first Portland Cement Conference, in order to consider prepara-
tion of a single standard specification. As a result, a Presidental Executive
order was issued on April 30, 1912, declaring that all portland cement pur-
chased by the Government was to conform to the specification agreed upon.
Four years passed before final concurrence was reached and an acceptable
specification was adopted by the principals, the American Society for Test.
ing Materials and the American Society of Civil Engineers.51
Even the most elementary of physical and chemical tests of cement
disclosed the inadequacy or imprecision of many procedures and instru-
ments in common use in the industry, and the test sections and the engineer-
ing group at the Bureau set to work developing better test methods and
51 NBS C33, "U.S. Government specifications for portland cement" (1912); letter,
Secretary of Commerce to Engineer Commissioner, Washington, D.C., Dec. 26, 1916
(NBS Box 15, IRC) -