Ownership and design of the steam generator
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Do devices that generate steam using electric heating elements fall under the category of boilers or pressure vessels, and what qualifications are required for their design?
Equipment that uses electric heating elements to generate steam is generally designed as pressure vessels, and such design work requires a qualification level of D2 or higher.
However, according to the catalog of special equipment, it is classified as a boiler, so it’s quite confusing.
It indeed should be classified as a boiler, because according to clause (6) of the exclusion criteria specified in the Code for Large Vessels, your steam generator can be regarded as an electric heating furnace within process equipment. Furthermore, based on my personal understanding, the essential difference between boilers and containers lies in the fact that in boilers, transformations of energy of different types occur (for example, the conversion of chemical/electrical energy into thermal energy), whereas in containers, devices such as heat exchangers and steam generators merely involve changes in the energy level or phase transitions of the fluids flowing through them. Just as a high-pressure steam turbine generates torque, it certainly cannot be classified as a container!
Our company designed and manufactured a steam generator. The customer requested that after it was completed, holes be drilled in the flange blind plates by them themselves so that electric heating elements could be installed. Our design documents referred to it as an electric heating steam generator; however, the inspection officer required us to remove the words “electric heating” in order to obtain the inspection certificate, otherwise it would be classified as an electric heating boiler for inspection purposes. So we removed those words.
However, designing it based on boilers is rather complicated, as design approval is required...
It’s troublesome to have electric heating boilers registered at the provincial level