Navigating ASME Section VIII (Div.1): Managing Your Pressure Vessels

By Hugo Julien, P.E., Mechanical Integrity Group Manager at GCM Consultants, Serge Bisson, Piping and Pressure Vessel Engineer at Norda Stelo, and Guy St-Arneault, P.E., Sr. Mechanical Integrity Group Engineer at GCM Consultants. This article appears in the May/June 2014 issue of Inspectioneering Journal.

The American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) is a not-for-profit membership organization that enables collaboration, knowledge sharing, career enrichment, and skills development across all engineering disciplines, toward a goal of helping the global engineering community.

The ASME International Boiler and Pressure Vessel Code (BPVC) is a code published by the American Society of Mechanical.

ASME publishes and maintains an International Boiler and Pressure Vessel Code (BPVC) that establishes acceptable margins of safety. ASME Section VIII of the code is dedicated to pressure vessels. It gives.

Codes and Standards are the rules and regulations released by both governmental and non-government agencies in order to establish an agreed upon method of operation for conducting business. A proficient understanding of the codes and standards within each discipline is important.

Fitness for Service (FFS) is a best practice and standard used by the oil & gas and chemical process industries for in-service equipment to determine its fitness for continued service. FFS serves as a rational basis for defining flaw acceptance limits and allows engineers to.

Pressure Vessels are containers which are designed to hold liquids, vapors, or gases at high pressures, usually above 15 psig. Examples of common pressure vessels used in the petroleum refining and.

Inspections, repairs, modifications, or Fitness-For-Service (FFS) assessments on an old, unfired ASME Section VIII (Div. 1) pressure vessel - Which ASME Section VIII (Div. 1) Code Edition should you use?

Since important decisions will be based on the results of the fitness-for-service (FFS) determination, you need to be sure that you have a strong FFS team. But what are the key ingredients of a good FFS team? This article provides some guidelines to.

The office of Minerals Management Services (MMS) is proposing to add a reference into their regulations governing oil and gas and sulphur operations in the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS). This revision will ensure that lessees use the best.

On July 26, 2006, the State of California revised its Petroleum Safety Orders. The Petroleum Safety Orders are part of the California Code of Regulations Title 8 and address the health and safety requirements for places of employment in the State of.

After pressure equipment (aka fixed or static equipment) is designed, fabricated, and constructed to new construction codes and standards (C/S), it is placed in-service, at which time the API In-service Inspection (ISI) C/S and ASME.

Introduction

According to the National Board Inspection Code (NBIC), Part 3 1 , paragraph 1.2(a): “When the standard governing the original construction is the ASME Code,…, repairs and alterations to pressure-retaining items shall conform, insofar as possible, to the section and edition of the ASME Code most applicable to the work planned.” NBIC’s interpretation 95-19 29 is more specific:

“Question: When the NBIC references ‘the original code of construction’, is it required to use the edition and addenda of that code as used for construction? Answer: No. The term ‘original code of construction’ refers to the document itself, not the edition/addenda of the document. Repairs and alterations may be performed to the edition/addenda used for the original construction or later edition/addenda most applicable to the work”.

But, recommended practice in API RP 572 4 , paragraph 4.6 says: “A refinery or petrochemical facility inspector should be familiar not only with the latest editions of codes but also with previous editions of the codes and with other specifications under which any vessels they inspect were built”. And finally, if a Fitness-For-Service (FFS) assessment is required, according to API 579-1/ASME FFS-1 5 , paragraph 1.7.2 agrees with API RP 572’s opinion by saying:

“The edition of the codes, standards, and recommended practices used in the FFS Assessment shall be either the latest edition, the edition used for the design and fabrication of the component, or a combination thereof. The engineer responsible for the assessment shall determine the edition(s) to be used.”

In other words, if you are performing an inspection, repair, alteration, or FFS assessment 5 on an unfired pressure vessel, you need the appropriate ASME Code edition to be able to fully understand the design limits and best support your engineering judgment.

The main purpose of this article and Part 1, which was previously published in the January/February 2014 issue of Inspectioneering Journal, is to provide the reader with as much knowledge and as many tools as possible to know when you are being conservative and when you are not being conservative enough when carrying out activities on your unfired pressure vessels. Hopefully, this information will also help you select the best plan of action even if the original edition of the construction code is out of print. API 510 2 , Figure 8-1 and NBIC, Part 3 1 , paragraph 3.4.2, can diminish the number of editions required for your library by authorizing the use of the latest edition of ASME Section VIII Div. 1 17 if all required conditions are met and understood.

Please remember that the post-ASME Section VIII Div. 1, 1999 addenda or pre-1999 addenda with the 2 following ASME Code Cases: 2278 24 or 2290 24 maximum allowable design stress, are based mainly on safety design margins of 3.5 instead of 4 (pre-1999 addenda) at room temperature, and can potentially result in thinner minimum thickness requirements than the original design.

The following article continues the discussion started in Part 1 and provides several important points you should consider in order to adhere to the NBIC Part 3 1 paragraph 1.2(a), API RP 572 4 paragraph 4.6, and API 579-1/ASME FFS-1 5 paragraph 1.7.2 recommendations previously mentioned.

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