Sound engineering practice vessels and piping 5

[Welder150]

Hello this is my first post on the site. Lots of good information on here .
My question is what procedures does my shop need to follow to manufacture vessels and piping that fall under (sep)

Is there an area that can explain what I need to do to get my shop certified to do this? Will I need to hire an engineer? The company I will be building these for have a full engineering team and they submit the drawing to me for fabrication .
Any help
Would be much appreciated thanks in advance

 

[DekDee]

Agree 100% with Rputvin regarding costs.
Worked on a Nickel Refinery in a French Territory in the South Pacific.
Welding was in accordance with ASME IX / B31.3 but it fell under the PED - what a nightmare.
Welder qualification must be witnessed by a Notified Body (NoBo).
So me, a Certified Welding Inspector for 20 years and my boss (A Scottish Welding Engineer with 20 years experience in the North Sea) were not deemed sufficient even though we were the Owners representatives.
We had to pay a bucketload of money for a third party NoBo to arrive only to find out the young guy who came had never seen titanium welded before.
Spent the whole day answering his questions whilst wondering - why ?
Nothing but a money spinner !

 

[XL83NL]

This was some years back for me, I know the CE directives have gone through a bit of an overhaul in the time since, notified bodies are more involved, the technical data file requirements are different - I think that was part of the 2016 changes that went into effect in 2018, but I don't keep current on this stuff anymore and we offload European/CE requirements where I work now (or perhaps the smarter move- avoid them entirely).

I would have to disagree with that. The difference between 97/23/EC and 2014/68/EU are very little. NoBo's are now just as much as involved as they used to be under 97/23/EC.

I've always found it difficult working to European standards in the USA - no one here has the knowledge to navigate this stuff, and consulting agencies that do know this stuff want a hefty sum just to start looking at your issue to provide guidance on which EN codes to use, let alone assistance in actually complying to the requirements of the directive (which is no help in identifying actual EN codes to use). Trying to contract with a firm in the EU is met with additional hurdles and expenses, only to be referred to a notified body who also has another set of hurdles and expenses, only to pay another tax and purchase the copies of the codes through another private entity who wants additional fees, only to realize the original consulting firm left out an essential requirement that requires more consultation fees, with more notified body fees, with more taxes, with more items we need to purchase to perform secondary checks against our consultants.... It's always clear as mud, and I've never had so much as a phone call or email after any project for all of the CE stuff I've put my name on.

The PED is not a standard, its a directive. Thats somehting else. EN standards are though. Working with EN 13480 or EN 13445 can be tricky, yes, but they bear a lot of similarities with ASME B31.3 resp. VIII-1, on a technical level. One main advantage is that when one complies with either EN 13480 (piping) or EN 13445 (vessels), they also comply with the PED. Both EN standards are harmonized.
I do agree that for non-EU companies/engineers it can be difficult to work on CE-marking, I also understand that when one says CE-marking is just a means of market protection that doesn't add any real safety - but working with EN standards for americans is in principle just as tricky as it is for EU company to work acc. to ASME. It's all a matter of adaptation and understanding that ASME is not the only official language in our discipline (though it might be a very good language, but that's a different cook).

If your client/customer has been through this before it's worth a phone call up the food chain on their end until you get in touch with someone knowledgeable on the subject with whom you can clear up your questions. Ultimately if you are indeed within SEP I believe most of the requirements are going to be in the written contract or specification that is your scope of work. If they're not specifying enough information for you to complete the work they contracted for you to finish they need to provide either the prevailing code for guidance, or they need to specify the needed missing information.

Agreed

Huub
- You never get what you expect, you only get what you inspect.