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STANAG 4487
NATO nations that ratify the agreement and implement it through national orders, and the organisations they call on to test energetic materials against it
STANAG 4487 is NATO's agreement on the method nations use to test and report the friction sensitivity of explosive materials.
STANAG 4487 is the NATO Standardization Agreement on friction sensitivity testing of explosives and energetic materials, now in its second edition (promulgated 29 October 2009, an editorial reissue of a 2002 original). Most STANAGs are a short cover committing nations to a separate Allied Publication that carries the technical detail. This one is not: it names "Related Documents: None" and carries the test method itself, in its own annexes. What a nation ratifies and what a laboratory runs are the same document.
The agreement's own aim is "to establish test procedures for providing the friction sensitivity of energetic materials," stated as a way "to accommodate the requirement for the qualification of these materials." Read plainly, that is a comparability problem: without a shared method, one nation's friction-sensitivity number cannot be set against another's. STANAG 4487 solves the comparability problem, not the acceptance problem. It says nothing about what result should be judged acceptable for a given material or use; that determination sits with whichever national process actually decides a material is qualified.
The agreement provides two annexed test methods, Annex A ("BAM Friction Machine") and Annex B ("Rotary Friction Machine"), and is explicit that "either test is required from Annex A or Annex B": a ratifying nation chooses one, not both. Annex C is a standard reporting sheet, there so that a result produced under either method reaches other nations in the same format; the agreement's own words are that ratifying nations "use the data exchange formats as provided in the annexes." This page does not describe what either method involves. The apparatus, the sample preparation, and the result values are exactly the technical detail a competent test laboratory needs from the STANAG itself, not from a summary of it.
A STANAG binds a nation, not a company. Ratification is the first step; implementation is separate and happens when a nation has "issued the necessary orders/instructions putting the contents of this agreement into effect." A ratifying nation cannot depart from the agreement quietly either: "no departure may be made from the agreement without informing the tasking authority in the form of a reservation," and any nation proposing a change routes it back through the same tasking authority that handled the original agreement. None of this reaches a supplier directly. It reaches one only when a contract, a tender, or a national requirement calls for a friction-sensitivity result produced against this method, most often at the point an energetic material is being characterised.
STANAG 4487 does not itself qualify a material, certify an organisation, or set a numeric limit for what counts as an acceptable result. It standardises how a friction-sensitivity test is run and how the outcome is written down and exchanged; what a customer or a national authority then does with that report is outside the agreement. The catalogue also links this record to STANAG 4488, a related NATO agreement on sensitivity testing of energetic materials, but STANAG 4487's own text does not elaborate on that connection, so it is worth reading as informational rather than as a paired requirement.
STANAG 4487 is an operational, test-method agreement, not a management-system standard: the work itself is a laboratory running a friction-sensitivity test on a bench, and no software does that. What ComplyTrain gives an organisation working to it is the documentation trail around that work.
Concretely, that looks like a controlled procedure recording which of the two accepted methods, Annex A or Annex B, the organisation uses and why; training records for the people qualified to prepare samples and run the test, tied to that procedure; and a retained history of completed test reports and any reservations raised with the tasking authority, ready to produce when a customer or a national authority asks.
What ComplyTrain does not do: it does not run the friction-sensitivity test, operate or calibrate the apparatus, or interpret a result. The testing stays in the laboratory; ComplyTrain holds the record of it.
Which tier of testing and documentation a given contract expects is set by that contract and the customer's quality clause, not by this page. See what sits alongside STANAG 4487 in the standards explorer, and talk to us about what your contract actually requires.
Tell us how you need to work with STANAG 4487 and what you need from it. We will come back to you about what ComplyTrain can do.
Thank you. Your list is on its way to your inbox, and we will come back to you on what working with these standards in ComplyTrain involves, usually within one business day.
Not by itself. A STANAG binds the nations that ratify it, and it reaches a supplier only through a contract, a tender, or a national requirement that calls for a friction-sensitivity result produced against this method. Whether it applies to a given piece of work is a question for that contract, not for this page.
STANAG 4487 covers friction sensitivity testing. The catalogue records STANAG 4488 as a related NATO agreement on sensitivity testing of energetic materials, but STANAG 4487's own text does not describe STANAG 4488's content, so treat the two as related rather than interchangeable.
No. It standardises the test method and the format for reporting a result, using two accepted annexed methods and a common reporting sheet. Deciding what result is acceptable for a given material or use is made elsewhere, by whichever national process qualifies the material.
No. The test itself is a laboratory activity carried out with the apparatus the agreement's annexes describe. ComplyTrain holds the procedures, training records, and test-report history around that work, not the physical test.
Yes. It is a NATO document, unclassified and issued free of charge through NATO's own Standardization Document Database. We do not sell it or host a copy.
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