SSH EN 1591-4:2013

Flanges and their joints - Part 4: Qualification of personnel competency in the assembly of the bolted connections of critical service pressurized systems

Scope

This European Standard is applicable to the bolting technicians, and their supervisors, the responsible engineers, who disassemble, assemble and tighten the bolted connections of whatever shape of critical service pressurised systems. A failure of a connection in such a system would endanger personnel, plant or the environment. A route for achieving competency in the skills required to safely and successfully disassemble, assemble and tighten pressurised bolted joints of any shape to a design bolt load using documented work instructions is given in this document. The aim is the establishment of a joint capable of maintaining a leak-free status throughout its’ service life.
This European Standard provides a modular training syllabus and an assessment process that can be used to determine the competency of personnel who disassemble, assemble and tighten bolted connections, whatever their shape, fitted to pressurised equipment containing a medium at any combination of temperature and pressure.
Bolting technicians have to assemble bolted connections of different levels of complexity. For this reason, training matrices dealing with bolted connections of various levels of complexity and for different types of pressurised bolted connections are given in this document. The modular structure created allows a bolting technician, once competency in the foundation level has been achieved, to obtain competency in higher levels as required.
Certification to this European Standard provides an attestation of general competency in accordance with the stated syllabi and assessments.
Certification to this European Standard does not represent an authorisation to operate, since this remains the responsibility of the employer, and the certified person may require additional specialised knowledge of employer-specific procedures, processes and equipment.