A. General

(a) Introduction

EN 13445 (European Committee for Standardisation, 2002) is a new pressure vessel code (in this case also a “standard”) written to go with the European Pressure Equipment Directive (Directive 97/22/EC, 1997) that came into full force on May 22 2002.

It was put together over a period of 10 years by CEN Technical Committee TC54. Various sub-committees, made up of members from the national delegations, looked after the individual parts. While it does not have behind it the history of the well known national codes it was written by those same experts who are responsible for maintaining the various national codes across Europe. Bringing together different points of view and insights has the obvious potential disadvantage of “lowest common denominator” writing, but it also makes it possible to bring together good new methods for all to use. In general the intention has been to include the best available methods in the new standard. The design section is notable for new methods based on limit analysis for a number of components, especially flanges and tubesheets.

As is usual with pressure vessel codes and standards, it is intended to “update” EN 13445 regularly. Errors will be discovered and more material will be added. As will be seen, there are some important gaps, notably in materials of construction.