91st General Meeting Speaker Presentation
The Partnerships Between NBBI, ASME, and PVMA
Thomas Vandini
The following presentation was delivered at the 91st General Meeting Monday General Session on May 15, 2023. It has been edited for content and phrasing.
INTRODUCTION: Thomas Vandini is a consultant to Quality Steel Corporation (QSC) regarding pressure vessels. Previously he served as director of quality and continuous improvement. Mr. Vandini has held various engineering, management, and consulting roles for several manufacturing companies. He has served as a member of the NBIC Inspection subgroup and subcommittee since 2014. He is a member of the NBBI Advisory Committee representing pressure vessel manufacturers. He has been involved with the Pressure Vessel Manufacturers Association (PVMA) since 2014 and serves on the board of directors.
His slide presentation can be found here.
MR. VANDINI: Hi everyone. I would be remiss if I didn't point out something people often ask me this, what kind of steel does Quality Steel make? Quality Steel doesn't make steel. They make pressure vessels. They are the largest manufacturer of horizontal propane tanks and pride themselves in making their tanks in the United States at three different plants. I wanted to say that first.
Rob (Troutt, NBBI Board of Trustees chair) mentioned that I'm going to be talking about the partnerships between NBBI, ASME, and PVMA. I wanted to give you a little background about how this presentation came together. Just so you know, PVMA stands for the Pressure Vessel Manufacturers Association. And currently we have 25 members. We're always looking for more members because we want to grow. We think that anyone who produces pressure vessels would want to be a member of PVMA. Someone came up with the idea that, hey, let's make a presentation at the National Board General Meeting. And that will at least be an opportunity to create some interest around this.
Mike Pischke of the National Board offered to create an outline, and I was lucky enough to get chosen to come here and present. And thinking about what Mark (Schulman, General Meeting keynote speaker) told us earlier, I think I went home to my wife and said, "I have to make a presentation at the General Meeting." Now, Mark would say, "I get to make a presentation at the General Meeting." I told my wife about that, and she's a high school teacher. She said, “I'd love to help you with the slides.” I got the outline from the slides together and sent them to my wife for her to start working on them a little bit, cleaning them up and making it a little nicer. She got it, she looked at it, she said, "You can't present this. Everyone is going to fall asleep if you present this." She thought about it a little bit, and she's been to these meetings before. And she said, "You know what. I know those people. I've spent some time with them. They're passionate about safety. They like a lot about history." What I tried to do is weave together a little bit about the organization, the partnership and connect it with safety and history.
Why do you think we're all here? First, we're passionate about boilers and pressure vessels. But we're even more passionate about safety. As I start to weave you through this little bit of a journey, I'd like to give you a brief history of boilers and pressure vessels with a focus on North America. I'm sure with your experience, involvement with the rules and your participation in the National Board, this is all a repeat. But I think it bears repeating.
Commercial steam engines were invented and employed for a variety of uses in the early 18th century. By 1800, there were over 2,500 steam engines in use in England. And as I was preparing this presentation, I'd always thought about the development of the steam engine. But I had never given much thought that by 1800, there were 2,500 of these in England, but we weren't having explosions back then. Does anyone know why? The original steam engines actually worked using a vacuum and gravity and operated in atmospheric pressure. It was a vacuum that moved the piston up and then gravity was used to pull it back down again.
The first high-pressure steam engine wasn't invented until 1800. And then around 1860, convection boilers were introduced. Advancements in boiler and pressure vessel design and construction continued to take place throughout the second half of the 19th century. And by 1890, there were 100,000 boilers in service in the United States. Show of hands here how many people are familiar with the disaster of the sinking of the Sultana? We got a good cross-section here as to who are familiar with that. There's a pretty good, about a 10-minute video about the sinking of the Sultana called Fascinating Horror. You can find it on YouTube, but let's just talk about some of the facts associated with that.
The Sultana was a privately owned side-wheel steamship that was built in Cincinnati in 1863, and it had four fire-tube boilers on it. Shortly after Abraham Lincoln was assassinated, the vessel was sent down the river and ended up in Vicksburg. What it was predominantly doing was sharing the news about Lincoln's assassination. It ended up in Vicksburg, and there were a lot of union soldiers there, former prisoners of war who needed a journey back north. A quartermaster offered to pay the captain of the Sultana between $2.65 and $8 a soldier, depending on rank, to transport them back up the river to get them home. So, there was a financial incentive for this captain to take as many soldiers as he could. Capacity of the ship was 376 passengers; however, they ended up loading almost 2,000 passengers onto the ship.
Also, at that time one of those boilers had a leak. They didn't want to take the time to do a proper repair on it, so they did a quick patch over the seam where the leak was. They ended up having so many soldiers loaded on this paddle-wheel vessel that there they were instructed to not move too quickly because there was initially a concern about shifting in weight and whether it would sink from that. It ended up traveling north and got about seven miles north of Memphis when that boiler with the shoddy repair exploded, almost instantly killing 500 to 600 soldiers. The two other boilers then exploded, and there was a massive fire on the ship. Depending on the numbers that you look at, it's estimated that more than 1,000 but as many as 1,400 soldiers were killed. It’s recognized as the worst maritime disaster in US history.
This was a great first opportunity you'd think would have been a call for safety. There ended up being an investigation, and they found what had happened, but no one was found accountable. It's anticipated or the reason why this didn't get more notoriety is because of Abraham Lincoln dying. This was a missed opportunity to promote safety. And I'm going to come back to that.
Let’s fast forward 15 years. ASME was founded in 1880 to provide the setting for engineers to discuss the concerns brought by the rise in industrialization and mechanization. The founders of ASME agreed that engineering standards would ensure safety, reliability, operational efficiency in machine design and mechanical production. The manufacturer of a variety of different products leading up to manufacture of steam engines made it clear that the commercial success lay in sale of large numbers of duplicate units, uniform, safe, and standardized. This focus of uniform, safe, and standardized accomplished production and sale of large duplicate vessels connects well with the founding of the PVMA in 1975. But we're still not quite there yet in our history.
I mentioned I'd come back to the Sultana. In 1865, the Sultana explodes. In 1880, the first meeting of ASME takes place. In that same year, there's 159 boiler explosions. In ASME's first decade, there's more than 2,000 boiler explosions. And I'm sure you all know about the catalyst for safety. Most notably there was a fire-tube boiler at Grover Shoe Factory in Brockton, Massachusetts, that exploded in 1905, killing 58 people. There was such an uproar that in 1906, ASME assembled the Board of Boiler Rules and drafted a brief document that was ultimately endorsed by the Massachusetts Legislature in 1907. It's important to note that before that document was adopted, there was another significant boiler explosion in Massachusetts.
That brings us to the role of the ASME and the partnership. In 1907, the first boiler rules were adopted by the state of Massachusetts, but we're still away from the partnerships that I mentioned. The first boiler and pressure vessel code, the 1914 edition, was published in 1915. The Rules for Construction of Unfired Pressure Vessels was published in 1925. I'll come back to the importance of this. ASME added the Rules for Multiple-Duplicate Manufacturing in 1962. This was originally located with Section VIII-1 UG-90(c)(2). The rules were moved to Appendix 35 in the 2008 Section VIII-1 addenda. And the name changed from multiple-duplicate to mass-produced. I mentioned the importance of the Rules for Construction of Unfired Pressure Vessels. Why is it important at this time? During the industrial age of the 1800s, as the North American economy expanded, the demand for pressure vessels and the pressure vessel industry grew.
Most notably, the development of compressed air systems for commercial use occurred in the late 1800s and marketing of LP gas as a fuel source began in 1912. These two activities dramatically increased the demand for air receivers, liquified propane tanks and other vessels and the industry rapidly expanded. While ASME code provided a solid reference of construction standard, it lacked an important component – the authority to regulate. I'm sure you're all familiar with these next items as it relates to history, but this was complicated by the existence of a lot of local and state jurisdictions having their own codes and standards. The result was a patchwork that I'm sure you're all familiar with.
In 1919, C. O. Myers met the chief inspectors from other jurisdictions and ultimately this was the genesis of The National Board of Boiler and Pressure Vessel Inspectors. And in 1921, the National Board developed a system for qualifying inspectors and authorizing manufacturers to stamp an NB number on inspected boilers. Registration of the boilers could now be completed when the manufacturers submitted an original manufacturer's data report to the National Board. As we move to modern day, we take a closer look at the role of the National Board and the partnership with ASME and PVMA.
The National Board began performing joint reviews to pressure vessel mass-production in the 1980s. And the National Board provides specific team leaders for reviews of manufacturers of mass-produced pressure vessels. Also, the National Board works with ASME to develop certified individual rules in ASME and QAI-1 and provides coursework and testing to fulfill CI training requirements.
Let's move forward to 1975 when the PVMA is established. The purpose of the PVMA is to represent fabricators needs and viewpoints, exchange information on technical and manufacturing issues, and discuss the impact of regulations and standards on operations. Current membership consists of 16 pressure vessel manufacturers; material suppliers of which there are six; Authorized Inspection Agencies of which there's two; and engineering firms. Members of the PVMA serve as liaisons to both ASME code committees and the NBIC committees.
Now, let's look at the regular order of the PVMA – the voice of industry. The PVMA employs an ASME consultant who attends code meetings. And I'm happy to say that our current consultant is Mark Lower, who many of you have probably met. He does a great job representing the views of PVMA. The consultant for PVMA attends ASME code meetings, and PVMA members are provided a quarterly report informing us of possible code changes that are being discussed for the future.
The PVMA meets twice a year. And there's a spring meeting that typically takes place in March or April and blends three days of business and leisure activities at a warm resort location just like I'm sure you National Board members are used to. Our fall meeting takes place in September and is hosted by the National Board. And we really appreciate the partnership there that takes place and the camaraderie with the National Board. It's a short meeting, but it still blends with some recreation. Membership of PVMA is also able to provide feedback to the ASME code committee on the impact of changes through our ASME consultant. And membership will also be able to propose changes to code.
I do want to call attention to what I think is another important PVMA contribution. The largest single source of funding for the National Board comes from data report registrations. PVMA member companies produce the major share of ASME Section VIII, Divisions 1 and 2, pressure vessels that are manufactured in North America. And as a point of reference, in 2022, the member companies shipped over 623,000 ASME pressure code vessels, a large majority had data reports registered with the National Board. At the time that I got this information, we only had 11 of the 16 manufacturers who had shared their information for 2022. As another point of reference, in 2007, PVMA member companies had shipped 1.75 million vessels in the United States and Canada.
Coming full circle, industry standardization and partnership with regulatory authorities leads to productivity, economically competitive industries, along with safety both for end consumers and workers on the factory floors. The close relationship between PVMA and ASME and the National Board ensures pressure vessel industry codes and jurisdictions are all working together for the advancement of technology and safety. And I'm happy to say that PVMA is proud to maintain a respectful liaison with code writing and safety enforcement agencies.
I have an ask of you out there. As I said, we're looking for new members. If you happen to know of any member companies who you think might be a fit for PVMA or your company might fit PVMA, please share this. As I said, PVMA represents pressure vessel manufacturers, material suppliers for the pressure vessel industry, authorized inspection agencies, and engineering firms.
Interested companies can attend a meeting as a guest. And our two upcoming meetings that we have scheduled, we've got our fall meeting (Sept. 11-12) at the National Board Training Center, and then next year our 50th meeting will be at the JW Marriott in Las Vegas Resort & Spa (April 15-16, 2024) or you can check us out on PVMA.org.
Thank you.