American Society for Testing and Materials or ASTM International, is an international standards organization that develops and publishes voluntary technical standards agreements for a wide range of materials, products, systems and services. There are around 12,575 voluntary standards agreements with global application. The headquarters of the ASTM international organization are located in West Conshohocken, Pennsylvania, United States, northwest of the city of Philadelphia.

The organization was founded on February 29, 1898, as the American section of the International Association for Testing and Materials (IATM) at the initiative of Charles Dudley, then responsible for quality control of the Pennsylvanya Railroad, who had the initiative to make the until then rival railroads and steel foundries coordinate their quality controls, since the problem facing the growing railroad industry was the frequent breakage of the rails used.

A few years earlier, the International Association for Testing and Materials (IATM) had been founded, and precisely on June 16, 1898, the seventy members of the IATM met to found the American section of the organization.

In 1902, the American section was established as an autonomous organization under the name American Society for Testing and Materials, which would become universally known in the technical world as ASTM. Dudley was, of course, the first president of ASTM.

The field of action of the ASTM expanded over time, starting to deal not only with railway materials, but with all types of materials, covering a very broad spectrum, including coatings and the treatment processes themselves.

The development of standards in the years 1923 to 1930 led to a great development of the ASTM (of which, for example, Henry Ford was a member). The field of application expanded, and during the Second World War ASTM played an important role in the definition of materials, managing to reconcile the difficulties of war with the quality demands of mass production. Some recognition of this expansion was therefore natural and in 1961 ASTM was redefined as the American Society for Testing and Materials, its purpose having also been expanded. From that moment on, ASTM coverage, in addition to covering traditional construction materials, began to deal with the most varied materials and equipment, such as metallographic samples, motorcycle helmets, sports equipment, etc.