What You Should Know About the ASME Boiler and Pressure Vessel Code
In the United States, there is a standard put in place for the regulation of the design alongside the construction of pressure vessels and boilers. What this implies is that not just anyone can go ahead to produce these items and the standard is called the ASME Boiler and Pressure Vessel Code. It is also called the ASME pressure vessel BPVC and it was put in place by the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) hence the tagging of ASME pressure vessel.
The standard is in the form of a document and the writing, collation, and maintenance were all done by a set of volunteers. These volunteers were carefully selected based on their level of technical skills, knowledge, and experience. The society itself functions as a body that gives accreditation and allows the autonomous third parties (like the testing, verification, and certification bodies or ASME code manufacturer) to do inspection tours and make sure that there is compliance at all time to the code – this is very important.
The code itself came about following serious reaction from the general public following several dangerous explosions in Massachusetts. In March 1905, there was a serious fire-tube boiler explosion in the state and almost 60 people lost their lives with 150 sustaining injuries but that was not the end. In December 1906, another boiler exploded in the state, and following this, the state had to enact the very first law-based code following the rules of ASME regarding the construction of the steam boilers. This was done in 1907 and remains in use till today by several ASME code manufacturer.
The society formed the Board of Boiler Rules before it was later named the ASME Boiler Code Committee which was established in 1911. It was this committee that did the work on the very first version of the ASME Boiler Code and it was issued in 1914 then published in 1915. The first version was called the 1914 edition and it was one volume that had 114 pages. Over time, it became a revised version and today, there are more than 90,000 copies in circulation in more than 100 countries across the globe.
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