Data reports, nameplates and the certification mark

V-414's nameplate was the last thing fitted before it shipped: a stainless steel plate on a bracket, stamped with the ASME certification mark, the letter U, and a dozen lines of data. Two weeks later, while the data report was being prepared for ABSA, Kiera was asked to compare the report with a photograph of the nameplate, line by line. One line did not match. "That's why we check," Harjit says. "The nameplate and the data report are the vessel's birth certificate. They have to tell the same story for the next fifty years, because nobody will ever see the inside of that shop again." This lesson covers the ASME certification mark and its designators, what a nameplate must show, the data reports for vessels, boilers and parts, the order in which certification happens, and how errors are caught and corrected.

The certification mark

ASME work used to be marked with a set of separate code symbol stamps: a U in a clover-leaf for vessels, an S for power boilers, and so on. Since the early 2010s, ASME has used a single certification mark, a shield-shaped symbol, together with a designator that shows the kind of work: U, U2, S, H, PP, A and others. The mark may be applied only by a holder of a current certificate of authorization for that designator, only to items built under the certificate's quality control system, and only after the inspector has completed the final inspection and test and authorized it. Misusing the mark, or applying it to an item that was not built under the system, is grounds for losing the certificate.

The mark is applied with the shop's own stamp, which is kept under the control of quality control and logged in and out. Harjit's stamp set lives in a locked box in his office, and the log shows every time it has been used, on what, and who witnessed it.

What the nameplate shows

Section VIII, Division 1 sets out the required markings in UG-116, and Section I has similar rules. The markings go either directly on the vessel or, more usually, on a nameplate permanently attached to the vessel, and they must be legible for its life. For a Division 1 vessel the required markings include the certification mark with the U designator, the manufacturer's name, the maximum allowable working pressure at its temperature, the minimum design metal temperature at its pressure, the manufacturer's serial number and the year built. Other markings are added when they apply: the extent of radiography, shown as RT 1, RT 2, RT 3 or RT 4; HT when the vessel has been post-weld heat treated, or PHT when only part of it has; and letters for special service or construction.

The nameplate is the only part of the vessel's paperwork that travels with the vessel. When Peg opens a forty-year-old vessel at Riverbend, the nameplate tells her the rating, the year and the serial number, and with the serial number and the registration number she can get the data report, which tells her everything else. That is why grinding a nameplate off, painting it over or insulating it in so it cannot be found are all treated as serious faults. Insulated vessels usually have the nameplate on a standoff bracket so that it stays visible.

Data reports

The manufacturer's data report is the formal record that an item has been built to the code. For Section VIII, Division 1 vessels, the common forms are the U-1 and the shorter U-1A, which give the owner and location, the manufacturer and certificate, the serial number, the shell and heads with their materials, thicknesses and corrosion allowance, the joints with their types and radiography, the nozzles and openings, the heat treatment, the design and test pressures and temperatures, the impact tests, the code edition and any code cases, and the signatures of the manufacturer and the inspector. Section I has its own set of forms for boilers, boiler parts and piping.

Parts made by one manufacturer for an item completed by another, such as heads bought from a head maker or a tube panel made in another shop, are certified on partial data reports. Section VIII uses the U-2 and U-2A forms for parts. The partial data reports are attached to the completed item's data report, so the chain of certification is unbroken.

A data report is a legal document. The manufacturer's signature certifies that the statements on it are correct and that the item was built to the code; the inspector's signature certifies that he inspected it and that, to the best of his knowledge, it meets the code. Neither signs until the item is finished, examined and tested, and neither signs a report that has errors in it.

The order of certification

Certification follows a set order. The design is completed and reviewed, and registered with ABSA before any work starts. The item is built, with material control, welding, examination and heat treatment recorded as they happen. The inspector witnesses the hold points and the pressure test. Only then is the data report completed and signed by the manufacturer, reviewed and signed by the inspector, and the certification mark applied to the nameplate with the inspector's authorization. Finally the item is registered with ABSA as an installed item when it reaches its site.

Applying the mark before the inspector has authorized it, or attaching a stamped nameplate before the test, breaks that order and can cost the shop its certificate. Harjit tells the class about a shop that stamped nameplates in advance to save time and was found out when a vessel failed its test with a stamped nameplate already on it.

Checking the nameplate against the report

# Nameplate and data report cross-check for V-414 (metric)
nameplate = {"designator": "U", "manufacturer": "Ironbridge Industrial", "serial number": "IB-29-0414", "year built": 2029, "MAWP": "1,700 kPa at 150 C", "MDMT": "-29 C at 1,700 kPa", "radiography": "RT 1", "registration": "CRN shown"}
report = {"designator": "U", "manufacturer": "Ironbridge Industrial", "serial number": "IB-29-0441", "year built": 2029, "MAWP": "1,700 kPa at 150 C", "MDMT": "-29 C at 1,700 kPa", "radiography": "RT 1", "registration": "CRN shown"}
for k in nameplate:
    a, b = nameplate[k], report.get(k)
    print(f"{k:28} nameplate {str(a):22} report {str(b):22} {'ok' if a == b else 'MISMATCH'}")

designator                   nameplate U                      report U                      ok
manufacturer                 nameplate Ironbridge Industrial  report Ironbridge Industrial  ok
serial number                nameplate IB-29-0414             report IB-29-0441             MISMATCH
year built                   nameplate 2029                   report 2029                   ok
MAWP                         nameplate 1,700 kPa at 150 C     report 1,700 kPa at 150 C     ok
MDMT                         nameplate -29 C at 1,700 kPa     report -29 C at 1,700 kPa     ok
radiography                  nameplate RT 1                   report RT 1                   ok
registration                 nameplate CRN shown              report CRN shown              ok

The fix depends on which is wrong. Harjit checks the traveller, the stamping log and the shop's serial number register: the vessel is IB-29-0414, and the draft report was typed with two digits transposed. Because the report has not yet been signed, it is simply corrected and re-checked. If it had already been signed and registered, the correction would have needed the inspector's agreement and a corrected report filed with ABSA. If the nameplate had been wrong, the correction would have been much harder, because a stamped nameplate cannot just be altered; the inspector and the authority would decide how to correct it.

Kiera's check took twenty minutes. A transposed serial number on a registered data report could have taken months to untangle years later, when somebody tried to find V-414's records and found V-441 instead.

Old nameplates and missing data reports

In service, inspectors sometimes meet equipment whose nameplate is damaged, painted over or missing, or whose data report cannot be found. A nameplate that is still attached but hard to read can often be cleaned and read, or its stamping recovered by a rubbing. If the nameplate is lost, the owner can ask the manufacturer or the National Board for a copy of the data report using the serial number or registration number from the owner's records. Replacing a nameplate is controlled: it needs the inspector's and the authority's agreement and, under the NBIC, a documented procedure, so that a vessel cannot be given a new identity casually.

Equipment with no nameplate and no data report is the hardest case. Without them, nobody can be sure what code it was built to, what materials it contains or what its rating should be. The authority may require it to be taken out of pressure service, or may accept it only after an engineering assessment that establishes its materials, thicknesses and welds, and a new rating, which is an expensive way to recover what a few lines of stamping would have told everyone.

Electronic records

More and more data reports and supporting records are now kept electronically, and the National Board accepts electronic submission of reports for registration. Electronic records must meet the same rules as paper ones: they must be complete, legible, controlled, signed in a way the authority accepts and protected from loss. A scanned report is only as good as the original it came from, so the shop still checks every line before anything is signed.

Boiler and parts nameplates

Section I boilers carry similar markings, stamped on the boiler or on a nameplate: the certification mark with the S designator, the manufacturer, the serial number, the year built, the maximum allowable working pressure, the steam capacity or heating surface, and other data depending on the type. Superheaters, economizers and other parts that are certified separately carry their own marking, and a field-assembled boiler may carry several nameplates for its parts in addition to the main boiler nameplate. When Riverbend replaced a superheater section in BLR-210's outage, the new section arrived with its own stamped data and partial data report, and both were added to Unit 2's records.

Kiera notices during the class that everything on a nameplate is something an inspector would otherwise have to work out from scratch. The pressure and temperature tell her how hard the vessel may be pushed; the serial number and registration tell her where to find the rest; and the RT and HT markings tell her what examination and heat treatment it has already had, which shapes how a future repair must be done.