Repairing an ASME U-Stamp Vessel

The question is "may" you do these things. You "can" do anything, but regardless of what the owner "wants" to do you may not do them.

If you or your customer choses to do a repair he must accept the liability and any consequences. The matter of whether he "may" do it under the circumstances you describe, may or may not also depends on the prevailing requirements in the Jurisdiction. i.e. Whether the civil laws of the country state or county in which the facility is located.

According to ASME, an authorized certificate holder with a U Stamp must do the repair for it to be recognized by ASME and the National Board. If not your customer must remove the U stamp from the vessel.

You should repair the vessel by the current ASME codes or the code edition of when it was originally built. If you want to keep the ASME code integrity intact then any replacement part would have to be built under the same or current edition of the code it was built to. You can repair the vessel and obtain the replacements parts needed and stay within ASME code limits with a R-stamp repair program only in the USA.

Now the hard question: The owner of a vessel can choose to not follow ASME codes for the repair of a vessel. When they choose to do this they take on a huge amount of responsibility on themselves and in some places such as vessels that the general public can be in harms way, break the law iwhen they do. I would suggest that if asked to make a repair on a vessel and you do not have at least an R-stamp repair program as well as understand fully the other state and local codes and standards that may apply that you refuse the work. Although you may be able to get away without having a stamp by following the intent of the code and/or have written documentation from the client that releases you from responsibility it is not nearly worth taking the chance of doing it IMO.