STANAG 4489 explosives impact sensitivity tests

What it is

STANAG 4489 is the NATO Standardization Agreement under which member nations commit to a common method for testing the impact sensitivity of explosives. Its purpose, stated plainly in the agreement's own aim, is to standardize test apparatus and test procedures for determining impact sensitivity so that results produced in one nation's laboratory can be exchanged with, and directly compared to, results produced in another's.

Most STANAGs are covers: the agreement itself is short, and the technical specification lives in a separate Allied Publication the STANAG points to. STANAG 4489 is not built that way. The technical content sits in the STANAG's own four annexes, so a nation ratifying STANAG 4489 is ratifying both the agreement to use a common method and the specification of that method in the same document.

Who ratifies it, and how it reaches an organisation

The agreement is addressed, in its own terms, to NATO national staffs. Its promulgation letter asks each nation's delegation to examine the ratification page and advise NATO's Defence Support Division of its intention regarding ratification and implementation. Ratification is a national act, and the agreement's own record shows a number of NATO nations ratified it, each against its own national reference and with its own implementation timetable across naval, army and air components.

A STANAG binds a nation once ratified, with or without a stated reservation, and implemented through a national order, manual or instruction that references the STANAG number. From there it reaches an organisation the way any STANAG does: through that national implementing instruction, or through a contract or tender clause that cites STANAG 4489 by number. The agreement does not bind a supplier by existing; it binds through what a nation and a contract do with it.

This is Edition 1, promulgated on 17 September 1999. It has been amended once: Amendment 1 was entered into the record on 20 September 2013.

What it requires

The agreement itself asks for three things of a ratifying nation, and reproducing more of it than this would mean reproducing sensitivity-testing detail rather than describing what the standard is.

• Accepting a common procedure. Participating nations agree to accept the tests the STANAG

describes as their standard procedure for determining and exchanging impact-sensitivity data. Determining impact sensitivity requires only one of the tests set out in the annexes, not all of them.

• A choice of recognised apparatus. The agreement's Annexes A, B and C each describe a different,

internationally recognised piece of impact-sensitivity test equipment. Which one a national test organisation uses is an administrative choice; STANAG 4489 does not mandate a single machine. Annex D provides the standard data sheet on which results are reported, so that a result from any of the three carries the information needed to interpret it consistently.

• Implementation through compliance, not certification. The agreement states that it "will be

considered implemented when ratifying countries comply with the test procedures described in this STANAG for the impact sensitivity tests." Implementation is a matter of following the agreed procedure and reporting on the agreed sheet, not a separate sign-off step.

No departure from the agreement may be made without consulting the tasking authority, and a nation may propose a change at any time, which is then processed the same way the original agreement was.

How results are evaluated

No organisation can be certified against STANAG 4489, and the agreement names no accreditation or certification scheme. What it defines is procedural: a result only counts as "determined according to STANAG 4489" if it was produced with one of the agreed test methods and reported on the agreed data sheet. That completed data sheet is the evidence a contract's quality clause, a national procurement authority, or a related qualification programme relies on; STANAG 4489 itself does not audit, inspect or sign anything off, and it describes no recurring surveillance cycle. A test either followed the agreed procedure and used the agreed form, or it did not.

Standards it references

STANAG 4489 names one related document: STANAG 4170, "Principles and Methodology for the Qualification of Explosive Materials for Military use." The agreement states that its test data is meant to facilitate the exchange and direct comparison of results used in conjunction with qualification testing under STANAG 4170. It informs that qualification programme rather than being required by it: STANAG 4489 can be used, and its data exchanged, on its own terms.

Getting a copy

STANAG 4489 is a NATO document, free of charge. NATO's Standardization Document Database lists it and serves the current, unclassified text; we do not sell it or host a copy, and any use should credit NATO as the publisher.

Standards it references

• STANAG 4170Background