Feasibility study of adopting an available standard as a national standard for the manufacture of boilers in Sri Lanka

Abstract

As a result of several boiler explosions took place in the recent past that have been broadly discussed in Chapter 1 of this thesis, a need of a standard for the manufacture of boilers in Sri Lanka was arisen. Even though such codes have already been formulated, those are not prac-ticable. Mainly the materials proposed for the shell are very rarely found in the local market. Therefore, in this research project, minimum and essential requirements for the manufacture of boilers and applicability of both specified materials and alternatively proposed materials which affect the construction of boilers were analysed. The main objective of the project was to carry out a feasibility study for adopting an existing standard as national standard. Within the identified scope the objectives of the research were to: identify material requirements for the shell; identify material requirements for the tube plates; and identify material requirements for the man hole and hand hole. Data collection was through open discussion with the manufacturers and statistics of the La-bour Department. As of the findings of Chapter 8, for a given steam boiler, the material speci-fied in the standard and the proposed equivalent martial A36 as well, can be used for the shell, tube plates and man/hand holes.In addition to that, to provide essential guidelines to boiler manufacturers as given in Boiler pressure part materials of Chapter 3 and Pressure ves-sel welding of Chapter4 so that their manufacturing process is enhanced thereby, to stream-line the boiler industry of the country with the national legislations thereby, to ensure a safer working environment for the operators thereby and to evaluate the standard requirements in comparison with the actual data of materials to be used for the above are the other objectives. In furtherance to that, the adopted standard as such is going to be used as the base document of the law that will be enacted by the Department of Labour of Sri Lanka in order to regulate the boiler industry or manufacture of boilers in Sri Lanka. Since the standards are voluntary in nature, it is essential to make special provisions in order to get this enacted as a law which will be a part and parcel of the judicial system of the country while the same will enhance the boiler industry to be matured enough in order to be able to confront with the market chal-lenges by avoiding technical barriers to trade (TBT). However, there are two main limitations in consideration of assistance to be derived from existing standards as, availability of speci-fied materials in the Sri Lankan market and achieving the specified quality control and assur-ance of welding process. Keeping the above as constraints of this study and IBR as the stan-dard identified, a material designated by ASTM as A 36 was identified for equivalence from the market. Studies can be extended up to manufacture of pressure vessels as future work. Finally, this project will open another access for forward march of the country, to become a Newly Industrialized Country (NIC)