American Petroleum Institute

Fitness-for-Service - First Edition; Errata March 2000
 N RP 579

Annotation

The methods and procedures in this recommended practice are intended to supplement and augment the requirements in API 510, API 570 and API 653.

The assessment procedures in this recommended practice can be used for fitness-for-service assessments and/or re rating of components designed and constructed to the following codes:

• ASME B&PV Code, Section VIII, Division 1

• ASME B&PV Code, Section VIII, Division 2

• ASME B&PV Code, Section 1

• ASME B31.3 Piping Code

• ASME B31.1 Piping Code

• API 650

• API 620

The assessment procedures in this recommended practice may also be applied to pressure containing equipment constructed to other recognized codes and standards, including international and internal corporate standards. This recommended practice has broad application since the assessment procedures are based on allowable stress methods and plastic collapse loads for non-crack-like flaws, and FAD-based strategies for crack-like flaws (see Section 2, paragraph 2.4.2).

The user is advised to first review the validation discussion of Appendix H when the procedures of this recommended practice are applied to pressure containing equipment not constructed to the codes listed in paragraph 1.2.2. The information in Appendix H, along with a knowledge of the of differences in design codes, should enable the user to factor, scale, or adjust the acceptance limits of this recommended practice such that equivalent FFS in-service margins can be attained for equipment not constructed to these codes. When evaluating other codes and standards the following attributes of the ASME and API design codes should be considered: