Simple Pressure Vessels (Safety) Regulations (on legislation.gov.uk) sets out the 'essential requirements' (for safety) which must be met before products can be placed on the market in the UK.
Standards help businesses to meet the 'essential requirements'. The Regulations say how manufacturers must show that their products meet the 'essential requirements'. Products meeting the requirements must carry the appropriate conformity assessment mark before they are placed on the market in Great Britain (England, Scotland and Wales) and Northern Ireland.
New simple pressure vessels placed on the market in Great Britian must be UKCA or CE marked and supplied with instructions in English.
You can find more information in guidance from the Office for Product Safety and Standards (on GOV.UK).
The Simple Pressure Vessels (Safety) Regulations 2016 (as amended) implement Directive 2014/29/EU (Simple Pressure Vessels Directive) into UK law, whilst revoking and replacing the Simple Pressure Vessels (Safety) Regulations 1991.
Schedule 1 of The Simple Pressure Vessels (Safety) Regulations (on legislation.gov.uk) lists the essential safety requirements that qualifying vessels must satisfy. It also gives details of how the vessels should be categorised, the technical requirements to be satisfied, and the conformity assessment procedures to be followed.
Definition of simple pressure vessel
Simple pressure vessels are:
- intended to contain air or nitrogen at a gauge pressure above 0.5 bar but less than or equal to 30 bar
- not intended to be exposed to flame
- manufactured in series, that is, more than one vessel of the same type is manufactured during a given period by the same continuous manufacturing processes, in accordance with a common design
- of welded non-alloy steel or non-alloy aluminium construction or non-age hardening aluminium alloy
they also have:
- a maximum working pressure (PS) of not more than 30 bar, and a PS.V (the product of PS and the vessel's capacity expressed in litres) of not more than 10,000 bar litres
- a minimum working temperature of not lower than -50°C, and the maximum working temperature is not above 300°C for steel vessels and not above 100°C for aluminium or aluminium alloy vessels
and consist of either:
- a cylindrical component with circular cross-section, closed at each end, each end either outwardly dished or flat and also co-axial with the cylindrical component
- two co-axial outwardly dished ends
When the regulations do not apply
The Simple Pressure Vessels (Safety) Regulations do not apply:
- where vessels are designed specifically for nuclear use, and where vessel failure might or would result in an emission of radioactivity
- where vessels intended specifically for installation in, or for use as part of the propulsion system of, a ship (as defined in relevant merchant shipping legislation) or aircraft
- for fire extinguishers