A Chinese structural integrity assessment procedure for pressure vessels containing defects

A Chinese structural integrity assessment procedure, Safety Assessment of In-service Pressure Vessels Containing Defects (SAPV-95), is introduced in this paper. This procedure provides a guide to the safety assessment of in-service pressure vessels containing defects. Failure modes considered in this procedure are fracture, plastic collapse and fatigue. The R6 failure assessment diagram methodology is adopted by this procedure for fracture and plastic collapse assessment. For fatigue assessment, a method similar to the BSI PD6493-91 procedure is used. This paper outlines the framework of the procedure and addresses some differences between SAPV-95 and British procedures. This procedure is expected to become a document of the National Standard of China soon.