Many of the standards on surface preparation, coating and cathodic protection are also recognised and integrated or harmonized to:

  • American Society for Testing Materials (ASTM)
  • American National Standards Institute (ANSI)
  • Swedish Standards Institute (SIS)
  • Danish Standards Association
  • Standards Association of Australia

We are still in a situation that there are seperate SSPC and NACE standards. In the next months (maybe longer) these standards will merge into the new AMPP structure. Furthermore are all organisations focused at the development of norms, references and standards. In addition to the above mentioned standards, other valuable written and photographic/visual surface preparation standards are available, some of which are:

1. American Rust Standard System – Illustrates 24 degrees of rusting on uncleaned hot rolled steel.

2. The Production Technical Society – Illustrates wash primed and zinc rich primed steel before and after weathering and recleaning

3. The Society of Naval Architects and Marine Engineers (SNAME) – Illustrates typical appearances of painted steel before and after being abrasive blast cleaned to grades between SSPC-SP5, SP6, SP7 and SP10.

4. Shipbuilding Association of Japan – Illustrates the appearance of painted, unpainted, welded and fl ame[1]cut steel before and after various degrees of damage or weathering

Site Standards: Due to variations in initial surface conditions, types of abrasives used, etc., surfaces will often appear differently than those shown in the recognized photographic/visual standards. For these reasons it is recommended that samples, representative of the degree of cleaning specified, should be prepared with all parties involved present during their preparation. Once the specified cleanliness and appearance is agreed upon by all parties, these sample/standard panels should be protected from corrosion/ contamination and maintained as the visual standards for the duration of a project. You can find more information on different surface preparation methods in this article.