The Origins
of ASME's
Boiler and
Pressure
Vessel Code
By Domenic A. Canonico
The
ASME
Boiler
and
Pressu
re
Vessel
Code
was
concei
ved in 1911 out of need—the need to
protect the safety of the public and to
provide uniformity in the manufacturing of
boilers.
The need to protect the public became
apparent shortly after the steam engine was
conceived in the late 18th century. In the
early 1800s, there were literally thousands
of boiler explosions in the United States
and Europe, each of which resulted in some
deaths and a few injuries. The
consequences of these failures were not of
a catastrophic level that brought a lot of
attention to them. It was not until the
failures became more catastrophic that
attention was brought to bear on the
explosions.
Although there were numerous boiler
failures in the late 19th century, there were
no legal codes for boilers in any state in the
Union. Undoubtedly one of the most
important failures that proved the need for
developing boiler laws was the boiler
failure in Brockton, Mass., on March 10,
1905, at the Brockton Shoe Factory. An
explosion resulted in 58 deaths and 117
injuries, and completely leveled the
factory. It was this catastrophe that gave
Massachusetts the impetus in 1906 to
establish a five-man Board of Boiler Rules,
whose charge was to write a boiler law for
the state; this board published its boiler
laws in 1908. In 1911, the State of Ohio
enacted a boiler law.
By 1911, the year in which the ASME
Council appointed a committee to
formulate a boiler code, there were laws
and regulations in effect in 10 states and 19
metropolitan areas. The individual state
requirements differed greatly one from
another and lacked the appeal to be
accepted by other states. In essence, a
boiler built in one state could not be
installed in another state.
The intent of the ASME Council when it
established the Boiler Code Committee was
to prepare a standard that could be accepted
by all states. The committee's mission was
to formulate a standard specification for the
construction of steam boilers and other
pressure vessels. Although safety was the
primary mission of the committee, the
writing of the boiler code aimed to reduce
the multitude of regulations promulgated
by each state because there were economic
benefits that would be the byproducts of
uniform requirements.
From its inception, the Boiler and Pressure
Vessel Code Committee recognized the
need to communicate its activities to the
public and, in turn, get public participation.
This was done from the beginning by
public hearings, by publishing the changes
to the code in ASME's magazine,
Mechanical Engineering, and by opening
technical meetings to the public.
To further assure technical input from
appropriate parties, in 1916, the ASME
Council approved the formation of the
Conference Committee. This committee
was to be composed of representatives
appointed by states or municipalities that
had adopted, or were planning to adopt, the
boiler code. That Conference Committee's
role remains the same today: to provide
technical input, as it sees fit, to the
additions and revisions to the Boiler and
Pressure Vessel Code. Today, all the
provinces in Canada, 48 of the 50 states of
the United States, and various regulatory
agencies around the world have adopted,
by law or regulation, various sections of
the Boiler and Pressure Vessel Code.
The first Boiler and Pressure Vessel Code
(1914 edition) was published in 1915; it
consisted of a 114-page book, measuring 5
x 8 inches. Today there are 28 books,
including a dozen dedicated to the
construction and inservice inspection of
nuclear power plant components, and two
Code Case Books. The 1998 edition of the
Boiler and Pressure Vessel Code contains
more than 14,000 pages, each of which
measures 81Ú2 by 11 inches; it occupies
12 feet of shelf space.
The ASME Boiler and Pressure Vessel
Code is an international standard for the
construction of pressure boundary
components. More than 4,400 companies
throughout the world have ASME Boiler
and Pressure Vessel Code accreditation;
26.4 percent of those companies are outside
the United States and Canada.