IEC 60359

SLOVENSKI STANDARD
01-avgust-1995
Expression of the performance of electrical and electronic measuring equipment
Electrical and electronic measurement equipment - Expression of performance
Appareils de mesure électriques et électroniques - Expression des performances
Ta slovenski standard je istoveten z: IEC 60359
ICS:
17.220.20 0HUMHQMHHOHNWULþQLKLQ Measurement of electrical
PDJQHWQLKYHOLþLQ and magnetic quantities
2003-01.Slovenski inštitut za standardizacijo. Razmnoževanje celote ali delov tega standarda ni dovoljeno.

NORME CEI
INTERNATIONALE IEC
INTERNATIONAL
Troisième édition
STANDARD
Third edition
2001-12
Appareils de mesure électriques
et électroniques –
Expression des performances
Electrical and electronic measurement
equipment –
Expression of performance
 IEC 2001 Droits de reproduction réservés  Copyright - all rights reserved
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V
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International Electrotechnical Commission
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60359 © IEC:2001 – 3 –
CONTENTS
FOREWORD.5
INTRODUCTION.9
1 Scope and object.11
2 Normative references .11
3 Definitions .13
4 Specification of values and ranges .31
5 Requirements for IEC standards related to the equipment .33
6 Specification of limits of uncertainty.33
7 Specification of influence quantities.49
8 General rules for compliance testing.53
Annex A (informative) Conceptual and terminological evolution from "error" to
"uncertainty" .55
Annex B (informative) Steps in the specification of performance .63
Bibliography.67
Figure 1 – Calibration diagram.35
Figure 2 – Calibration diagram with scale marks in units of measurement .37
Figure 3 – Calibration diagram in different operating conditions .41
Figure 4 – Calibration diagram for extended operating conditions .43
Figure B.1 – Steps in the specification of performance.63

60359 © IEC:2001 – 5 –
INTERNATIONAL ELECTROTECHNICAL COMMISSION
____________
ELECTRICAL AND ELECTRONIC MEASUREMENT EQUIPMENT –
EXPRESSION OF PERFORMANCE
FOREWORD
1) The IEC (International Electrotechnical Commission) is a worldwide organization for standardization comprising
all national electrotechnical committees (IEC National Committees). The object of the IEC is to promote
international co-operation on all questions concerning standardization in the electrical and electronic fields. To
this end and in addition to other activities, the IEC publishes International Standards. Their preparation is
entrusted to technical committees; any IEC National Committee interested in the subject dealt with may
participate in this preparatory work. International, governmental and non-governmental organizations liaising
with the IEC also participate in this preparation. The IEC collaborates closely with the International
Organization for Standardization (ISO) in accordance with conditions determined by agreement between the
two organizations.
2) The formal decisions or agreements of the IEC on technical matters express, as nearly as possible, an
international consensus of opinion on the relevant subjects since each technical committee has representation
from all interested National Committees.
3) The documents produced have the form of recommendations for international use published in the form of
standards, technical specifications, technical reports or guides and they are accepted by the National
Committees in that sense.
4) In order to promote international unification, IEC National Committees undertake to apply IEC International
Standards transparently to the maximum extent possible in their national and regional standards. Any
divergence between the IEC Standard and the corresponding national or regional standard shall be clearly
indicated in the latter.
5) The IEC provides no marking procedure to indicate its approval and cannot be rendered responsible for any
equipment declared to be in conformity with one of its standards.
6) Attention is drawn to the possibility that some of the elements of this International Standard may be the subject
of patent rights. The IEC shall not be held responsible for identifying any or all such patent rights.
International Standard IEC 60359 has been prepared by IEC technical committee 85:
Measuring equipment for electrical and electromagnetic quantities.
This third edition cancels and replaces the second edition published in 1987 and its
amendment 1 (1991), of which it constitutes a technical revision.
The text of this standard is based on the following documents:
FDIS Report on voting
85/219/FDIS 85/220/RVD
Full information on the voting for the approval of this standard can be found in the report on
voting indicated in the above table.
This International Standard was prepared by IEC TC 85 following its resolution 85/45/AC of
1994-12-16 “to revise the IEC 60359, taking into account the "Guide to the Expression of
Uncertainty in Measurement" (GUM) published by ISO in 1993”.
The main technical changes from the previous edition of this International Standard consist in
adapting the requirements on the instrument performance to the approach on uncertainty
taken by the GUM, adapting the terminology to the new edition of the IEV, and offering a
wider and more correct choice of options in specifying the limits of uncertainty.

60359 © IEC:2001 – 7 –
Annexes A and B are for information only.
The committee has decided that the contents of this publication will remain unchanged until
2005-12. At this date, the publication will be:
• reconfirmed;
• withdrawn;
• replaced by a revised edition, or
• amended.
60359 © IEC:2001 – 9 –
INTRODUCTION
With the appearance of the interorganizational Guide to the expression of uncertainty in
measurement (GUM) that embodied the suggestions of CIPM Recommendation CI-1981, it
became clear that the classical approach to the precision and accuracy of measurement in
terms of true value and error is being superseded by the approach in terms of uncertainty.
The intrinsic pitfalls of the concept of true value (hence of error) had indeed led the operative
measurement world to rely increasingly on the concept of uncertainty, notwithstanding that the
main body of standards concerning the performance of measuring instruments was still written
in terms of the traditional approach. The widening gap between the best practice in metrology
and the wording of the standards prompted the normative organizations to invite their
Technical Committees to update these publications.
This new edition of the International Standard IEC 60359 was prepared in order to bring it into
agreement with the GUM. During the procedure for its approval the chapters on measurement
of the new edition of the International Electrotechnical Vocabulary (IEV) were published, and
the opportunity was taken to bring the standard into agreement with the terms used in the
IEV.
The main performance characteristics of an instrument are those related to the uncertainty of
the results obtained by using the instrument. The GUM provides a general terminology and a
computational framework for combining uncertainties of different origin, but it substantially
deals with the issue of evaluating uncertainty in the measurement of a quantity defined as a
function of other measured quantities, and does not address the issue of evaluating
instrumental uncertainty, i.e. the uncertainty of the results of the single direct measurements
carried out by the instruments. The GUM treats it as a component of uncertainty of category B,
known from information supplied by the manufacturer or calibrator of the instrument, in the
form of an expanded uncertainty with a stated coverage factor. It is therefore up to this
standard to provide indications for expressing and evaluating instrumental uncertainty in a
way consistent with the philosophy of the GUM. This means stating the requirements on
performance of the instruments in terms of limits of uncertainty instead of limits of error, which
implies a careful distinction between the indication of the instrument and the set of values
assigned to describe the measurand (see Annex A for the conceptual evolution from the
notion of error to the notion of uncertainty).
To this purpose, this standard systematically uses (in agreement with the IEV) the notion of
calibration diagram, which is also quite helpful in describing the interplay between intrinsic
uncertainty, variations, and operating uncertainty. Distinctions of this kind are essential, by
the way, for the new measuring systems, based on microprocessors with internal software or
using more than one input (multisensorial systems), that need to address the issue in general
terms without restrictive hypotheses on the instrumental hardware. They also allow a wider
choice of options in specifying performance characteristics.
For many people, of course, the passage from time-honored traditional terms and notions to
the ones evolved by modern metrology will require some mental adjustment, which is
altogether necessary, as current instrumentation has made giant steps from the times of
index-on-scale instruments. However, no particular difficulty is expected in translating into
terms consistent with this standard the bulk of existing technical specifications, most of which
are written in terms of "limits of error", often with ambiguities about whether or not suggested
corrections for influence quantities are included. When such ambiguities are removed, the old
specifications are easily harmonized to this standard by substituting the "limits of error" with
the "limits of instrumental uncertainty" expounded in clause 5, provided the contextual
indications (if any) on the means of evaluating these limits are adjusted to satisfy the
definitions given in this standard.
———————
Comité International des Poids et Mesures (CIPM)

60359 © IEC:2001 – 11 –
ELECTRICAL AND ELECTRONIC MEASUREMENT EQUIPMENT —
EXPRESSION OF PERFORMANCE
1 Scope and object
This International Standard applies to the specification of performance, with primary reference
to industrial applications, of the following kinds of electrical and electronic equipment:
– indicating and recording instruments which measure electrical quantities;
– material measures which supply electrical quantities;
– instruments which measure non-electrical quantities using electrical means, for all parts of
the measuring chain which present electrical output signals.
This standard applies to the specification of performance of instruments operating in steady-
state conditions (see 3.1.15), usual in industrial applications.
It is based on the methods expounded in GUM for expressing and evaluating the uncertainty
of measurement, and refers to GUM for the statistical procedures to be used in determining
the intervals assigned to represent uncertainty (including the way to account for non-
negligible uncertainties in the traceability chain).
This standard does not address the propagation of uncertainty beyond the instrument (or the
measuring equipment) whose performance is considered and which may undergo compliance
testing.
The object is to provide methods for ensuring uniformity in the specification and determination
of uncertainties of equipment within its scope. All other necessary requirements have been
reserved for dependent IEC product standards pertaining to particular types of equipment
which fall within the scope of this standard.
For example: the selection of metrological characteristics and their ranges, and of influence
quantities and their specified operating ranges, is reserved for IEC product standards.
2 Normative references
The following referenced documents are indispensable for the application of this document.
For dated references, only the edition cited applies. For undated references, the latest edition
of the referenced document (including any amendments) applies.
IEC 60050-300:2001, International Electrotechnical Vocabulary (IEV) – Electrical and
electronic measurements and measuring instruments – Part 311: General terms relating to
measurements – Part 312: General terms relating to electrical measurements – Part 313:
Types of electrical measuring instrument – Part 314: Specific terms according to the type of
instrument
ISO/IEC GUIDE EXPRES:1995, Guide to the Expression of Uncertainty in Measurement

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