Objectives
A common agreement between specialists on the exact meaning of the technical words used and on the symbols and units to be adopted will
ease the communication and avoid misinterpretations. This concerns not only the experts but also the educated public, which can be very
confused when trying to get some information about structural integrity. Public authorities need also to use a generally agreed vocabulary
to issue regulations.
Now, in spite of ISO standards and of the previous work of TC7, it can be checked that, in many instances, different words, symbols
and units continue to be used regarding one specified notion. This means that more publicity should be given to the nomenclature
document issued by TC7 and that some updating might be needed.
What to do:
Revision of document N°TC7D-1-96
TC7 issued a document N° TCD-1-96, which was published in Fracture and Fatigue of Engineering Materials and Structures in the volume
19 N°12, pp. 1515-1533, 1996. There might be a need to update this document. Are the definitions given still adequate? Are there
new notions to be introduced? I would expect each TC to designate a correspondent to take a careful look at the document and to
make suggestions for its improvement. Of course, this should not discourage other members of ESIS to send contributions. This can
be carried out by any mean: regular mail, e-mail, telephone call (Dominique François, 13, rue des Envierges, F75020 Paris, France;
francoisdom@free.fr; Tél. 00 33 (0)1 47 97 85 43, 00 33 (0)6 82 20 12 93).
Publicity
The TCs ought to make document N° TCD-1-96 better known and to make recommendations for its use. I myself, will again contact scientific journals to make them aware of the existence of the document and to ask them to encourage authors and reviewers to take it into account.
Glossary
A more demanding task would be to issue a glossary of technical terms, including definitions and equivalents in other languages. Could the TCs list technical terms which might be included in such a glossary together with proposed definitions, and maybe translations in other languages?