Petrochem/Utilities Industry Trends

January 2004

New ASME Boiler and Pressure Vessel Code to Arrive in July

Issue Table of Contents

New ASME Boiler and Pressure Vessel Code to Arrive in July Becoming a Certified Pressure Vessel Inspector New Requirements Soon to Become Available for Transport Tanks ASME Boiler & Pressure Vessel Related Standards and Publications

Next July, the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) will be releasing a revised version of the ASME Boiler and Pressure Vessel (BPV) Code. The new Code will contain considerable changes, and will require compliance by January 1, 2005 for companies who are ASME stamp holders — that is, companies that are accredited by ASME to stamp their products with the ASME Code symbol stamp, indicating that their products conform to the ASME BPV Code.

The ASME BPV Code is designed to provide manufacturers with standard rules related to the design, fabrication, and inspection of boilers, pressure vessels, and nuclear power plant components. The goal of the Code is for equipment bearing the ASME Code symbol stamp to meet standards that will help ensure the safety of workers and the general public and provide an acceptable margin for deterioration in service. While petrochemical companies are not required to buy equipment with the ASME stamp, the Code has been adopted — in part or in its entirety — by 49 states in the United States and all the provinces in Canada. Petrochemical companies using pressure equipment in their operations must meet local jurisdictional requirements; in many places, this means using equipment that meets ASME standards.

The 2004 BPV Code, which will be released July 1, 2004, contains a number of revisions. In particular, several will be of interest to petrochemical companies and the manufacturers who supply equipment to them. These include:

• Section VIII, Division 1. Division 1 contains information on Part UHX mandatory rules for shell-and-tube heat exchangers and alternative rules for the design of tubesheets. Much of this information is new to the Code. Another section that may be of interest to petrochemical companies and suppliers is Appendix 26 of Division 1, which covers pressure vessel and heat exchanger expansion joints. The appendix was revised to extend its current scope to toroidal bellows and multiple plies.
• Section XII. This is a completely new section of the Code. It provides rules for the construction and continued service of transport tanks. For more information on Section XII, read "New Requirements Soon to Become Available for Transport Tanks."
• B31.3. This section contains information on process piping. Changes include two new appendices, as well as the addition of metric data for a third appendix.

The BPV Code is developed and maintained by the ASME Boiler and Pressure Vessel Standards Committee, a group of more than 950 industry experts who volunteer their time to the committee. According to Joseph Brzuszkiewicz, project engineer, ASME, these committee members use their industry expertise to suggest changes. “These people have their finger on the pulse of what is happening in the industry from a technical standpoint…. A lot of times if they run into a situation at work that needs to be clarified or a new material needs to be added or a new type of product comes on the market that’s not covered by our code, they propose revisions to the Boiler and Pressure Vessel Code.”

Changes can also be suggested by Code users — those who use the Code to manufacture equipment. Code users can suggest these changes to the BPV committee. “All these are reviewed by our committee,” says Joseph. “If it goes through the entire process and it’s acted upon favorably, that change becomes incorporated into our Code.”

The Code is updated every three years; the last edition was released in 2001. In addition, the Code is reviewed annually and changes are published as addenda. These addenda are sent automatically to purchasers of applicable sections of the Code and compliance with these changes becomes mandatory six months after their release. As with previous editions of the BPV Code, stamp holders will be required to keep a hard copy of the 2004 BPV Code on their premises in order to apply for and maintain their accreditation.

The BPV Code is available for purchase in its entirety or by sections, and can be purchased in hard-copy or CD-ROM formats. For more information on purchasing the BPV Code, visit store.ihs.com.