The Pressure Equipment Directive

What it covers

Directive 2014/68/EU applies to the design, manufacture and conformity assessment of pressure equipment and assemblies with a maximum allowable pressure above 0.5 bar. It replaced 97/23/EC and has applied in full since July 2016.

Equipment is placed in a risk category — I to IV — from the fluid group, the type of equipment, and the pressure and volume or diameter involved. The category determines which conformity assessment modules are available and how deeply a notified body is involved.

The part that touches the workshop

Two requirements from Annex I dominate day-to-day work:

Permanent joining procedures must be approved. The welding procedure is qualified and the approval is issued by a notified body or a recognised third-party organisation for equipment in category II and above.

Personnel making permanent joins must be approved by the same route. It is not enough for a welder to hold a certificate issued by the employer; for those categories the approval has to come from an independent body.

This is precisely why certification bodies exist in this market, and why the fabricator and the notified body are two different kinds of customer with two different problems.

Non-destructive testing personnel

For category III and IV equipment, personnel carrying out non-destructive testing of permanent joints must be approved by a recognised third-party organisation. Again: not self-certified.

What has to be recordable

• The category assignment, and the basis for it
• The conformity assessment module followed
• Approved welding procedures, with the approving body and the approval reference
• Approved welders and operators, valid on the date of the work
• NDT performed by personnel approved through the right route where the category demands it
• Material conformity, including the inspection document required by the specification
• The technical file, complete enough that somebody else could follow it

The recurring trap

Category creep. A vessel is quoted and planned as one category and, after a design change, belongs in a higher one — which retroactively changes who was allowed to approve the welders and the procedures. Catching that late is expensive; catching it because the system knows the category and the approval routes is not.