Rationale

The abridged test report for ASTM C518 is commonly used by laboratories to communicate key results to customers and clients. Recently, it was brought to the attention of the task group chair that requiring uncertainty estimates in these abridged reports may place an undue burden on labs. This concern stems from the fact that most clients do not request or rely on uncertainty values, and may not fully understand them. As a result, some labs view the mandatory inclusion of these calculations in abridged reports as unnecessary and inefficient. The proposed change would make the inclusion of uncertainty calculations optional for ASTM C518 abridged reports.