Conformity Analysis of Austenitic Stainless Steel Pressure Vessels Designed According to EN 13445 With Basic Safety Requirements of the Chinese Regulation TSG 21-2016

Abstract Pressure vessel manufacturers outside of China may use non Chinese standards to design and manufacture pressure vessels to export to China, but they must meet basic safety requirements of the relative Chinese pressure vessel regulations while meeting the product standards. In recent years, pressure vessel manufacturers within the European Union have increasingly adopted EN 13445 standard to design and manufacture pressure vessels to export to China. For austenitic stainless steel pressure vessels, EN 13445 specifies two different methods for determining the maximum allowable stress based on the rupture elongation of the materials. These two methods are significantly different from the method used by Chinese regulations to determine the maximum allowable stress of the materials based on yield strength, tensile strength, and corresponding safety factors. This article compared and analyzed the safety factors of the austenitic stainless steel pressure vessels designed according to EN 13445 with the design safety factors required by the Chinese regulation, which is TSG 21-2016 Supervision regulation on safety technology for stationary pressure vessels. The research results show that for the austenitic stainless steel materials with a fracture elongation A≥35% allowed for manufacturing pressure vessels according to EN 13445 standard, when 0.400<Rtp1.0/Rtm<0.500, the maximum allowable stress determined by the EN 13445 method cannot meet the design safety factor requirements of the Chinese regulation TSG 21-2016. Therefore, the maximum allowable stress value should be reduced according to TSG 21-2016 to ensure that the actual safety factors of the austenitic stainless steel pressure vessels meet the basic safety requirements of the Chinese regulation.