This chapter of the book is about learning to become familiar with the layout and contents of API 574. It is a code that is strongly linked to API 570 and, in some areas, contains some of the same information that appears in API 570. We saw in the previous chapter how this linking of codes is a feature of the API∕ASME approach to plant inspection (and the API certification exams).
API 574 is divided into twelve sections (sections 1 to 12) and one single-page appendix. The body of the text (i.e. sections 1 to 12) contains a large number of tables and figures, mainly sketches of piping components, interspersed with a few tables about pipe schedule wall thicknesses, etc.
The API 570 examination body of knowledge requires candidates to have knowledge of effectively all of the twelve sections. Hence API 574 is seen as a ‘general piping knowledge’ part of the API 570 certification syllabus. Fortunately, understanding the twelve sections is not as difficult as it first appears. In layout, API 574 is a heavily unbalanced code; i.e. a few sections (particularly section 10 covering inspection procedures) are quite long, up to fifteen pages, while most of them (sections 1, 2, 3, 5, 7, 8, 9, 11 and 12) are each only about one page long. In practice, sections 1, 2 and 3 are little more than preliminaries to the code and don't contain much new information.
