Standardization News

Since our founding in 1962, Bull Moose Tube has understood the importance of meeting and exceeding customer expectations. As a producer of steel pipe and tube and serving customers in the United States, Canada, and Mexico, we focus on ensuring consistent product quality across an array of applications, including architecture/construction, agriculture/farming, fire protection, industrial equipment, military, and transportation. Ensuring quality starts with meeting and exceeding the most rigorous safety and mechanical specifications.

We have long cultivated a productive working relationship with ASTM International. With seven manufacturing plants across the country, we believe it is important to use the most up-to-date standards through ASTM’s Compass platform, whether they’re for steel tube, sprinkler pipe, or mechanical tube. By meeting these standards, we can proudly stand by the quality of our products, and our customers can be certain they are buying a product that can be incorporated into their designs and products with full industry approval and support.

Meeting ASTM standards gives us advantages with:

• Local Compliance — Having products that meet ASTM standards helps our customers achieve compliance with local building codes, or in the case of our sprinkler pipe, local fire codes.
• Cost/Time Savings — For our customers, managing time and budget is critical. By using our products, they can more readily comply with local codes and regulations, cutting down significantly on time and cost, which often hamper building projects.
• Innovation — ASTM standards are constantly evolving, both in response to innovations and changes already occurring in the industry, as well as to push the industry forward to stay on the cutting edge. 

We at Bull Moose Tube have earned a reputation for pushing the industry forward, and we are grateful for the role that ASTM International has played in pushing our company forward as well. 

The impact that ASTM standards have on a product — and an industry — was clearly illustrated this year with the recent approval of the new standard specification for cold-formed welded high strength carbon steel or high strength, low alloy steel hollow structural sections (HSS) in rounds and shapes (A1112).

For several years, Bull Moose Tube has produced its Stratusteel line of tubing, which features alloys that previously were not covered by an official standard. While this product was stronger (ratings from 100-110 KSI), lighter (by 35 percent), and tougher (up to three times harder as measured on the Rockwell hardness scale) than conventional steel, this product faced obstacles, as there was no ASTM standard for Grades 70, 80, 90, 100, and 110 HSS. As a result, structural engineers wishing to use these products in their designs faced difficulty getting approval for a project. Fortunately, ASTM International’s members approved A1112 and solved the problem.

We are proud of the role our company, and specifically, ASTM member Mark Abernathy, our manager of field applications, played in developing and approving A1112 for HSS. Abernathy has been an ASTM member for nearly 14 years, and he has served on several technical groups prior to volunteering to lead the technical group tasked with writing a new HSS standard. Participating in the process to create a new ASTM standard has given Abernathy a deeper understanding of, and appreciation for, the impact ASTM has on the industries it serves. 

Creating a new ASTM standard can be a painstaking yet ultimately rewarding process that involves large amounts of industry input, numerous drafts, and a full-consensus voting process. This process first requires approval by a subcommittee of 200 voting members and then approval by the full, 1,200-member iron-and-steel-products committee.

Creating the A1112 standard took several years, and the process included healthy debate and a thorough editing process to fine tune language in the standard. The initial lack of familiarity among committee members with HSS was an early challenge as well as a source of debate. The standard was approved in late 2018.

As Abernathy, and any member of the various technical committees that have led ASTM standards development can attest, the process is never truly complete. Standards generate inquiries in the responsible committee that can turn into revisions to existing language. This constant evolution ensures the development of standards that are responsive to the industries they serve while continuing to lead them forward.

Company Snapshot

Bull Moose Tube Co., a privately held company that is part of Caparo Holdings US Ltd., manufactures ERW carbon steel, welded tube and pipe products for construction, industrial, and fire protection sectors.

• Trade Area: North America
• Number of Staff: 550
• ASTM International Members: 1