Communicating and conserving digital data from nuclear science and engineering

Digital data from nuclear science and engineering has to be communicated between many different computer systems in the supply chain during the design and build sequences and conserved in a computer understandable form for many years, effectively for ever, even after the original software systems are no longer available. The development of ISO standards for the computer representation of this data independently from proprietary software provides the resources to achieve these requirements. The fundamental basis for the global success of these standards is outlined and the results of applying one of these standards, ISO 10303-235: ‘Engineering properties for product design’, to some of the requirements of a new engineering code for nuclear components are described.