Technical Basis for Conversion of Non-Mandatory Appendix F of Section III of the ASME Boiler and Pressure Vessel Code to a Mandatory Appendix: Part II — Associated Code Book Updates

In 1974, the Level D Service Limits for Section III, Division 1, Class 1 components were published in Non-Mandatory Appendix F titled “Rules for Evaluation of Service Loading with Level D Service Limits”. Over the past 40 years, the scope of the Appendix F has been expanded to be applicable to certain Class 1, Class 2 and Class 3 components and supports in Division 1 as well as in Division 3 and Division 5. With each addition, the organization and implementation of the rules in Appendix F became more cumbersome for the user and consistency between the Appendix and the Code Books¹ was not maintained. At the same time, the use of these rules has evolved to the point where the non-Mandatory Appendix is essential the default for Level D Service Limits. Starting in the 2017 Code edition, the component design rules will reference Mandatory Appendix XXVII when Design by Analysis is used to determine Level D Service Limits. In particular, the component design rules, or rules specific to design of components and not Design by Analysis, were removed from Appendix XXVII and placed in the appropriate Code Book. This approach resulted in noteworthy updates to the support rules in Subsection NF, the core support rules in Subsection NG, the valve rules in NB-3500, and the piping rules in NB/NC/ND-3600. The detailed approach used to incorporate the component design rules into each Code Book are presented in this paper.