Foreword - What are Engineering Standards?

ES
Standards and Codes
Standards, codes, specifications are extremely important - often essential - technical
documents in engineering and related technical fields.
Standards: a technical standard is an established norm or requirement. It is usually a
formal document that establishes uniform engineering or technical criteria, methods,
processes and practices. The documents prepared by a professional group or committee
which are believed to be good and proper engineering practices and which contain
mandatory requirement.
Codes: a code is a set of rules and specifications or systematic procedures for design,
fabrication, installation and inspection methods prepared in such a manner that it can
be adopted by legal jurisdiction. Codes can be approved by local, state or federal
governments and can carry the force of law. The main purpose of codes is to protect
the public by setting up the minimum acceptable level of safety for buildings, products
and processes.
Pipe Fabrication Institute

The Pipe Fabrication Institute (PFI) publishes advisory Engineering Standards (ES) and
Technical Bulletins (TB) intended to serve the needs of the pipe-fabricating industry at
the design level and in actual shop operations. The PFI standards contain minimum
requirements; however, the designer or fabricator may consider specifying additional
requirements beyond the scope of PFI publications. The use of PFI standards or
bulletins is voluntary. A listing of PFI publications follows:
Engineering and Fabrication
ES2 - Method of Dimensioning Piping Assemblies
ES7 - Minimum Length and Spacing for Welded Nozzles
ES16 - Access Holes, Bosses, and Plugs for Radiographic Inspection of Pipe Welds
ES26 - Welded Load Bearing Attachments to Pressure Retaining Piping Materials
ES36 - Branch Reinforcement Work Sheets
ES40 - Method of Dimensioning Grooved Piping Assemblies
ES44 - Drafting Practices Standard
Welding and Fabrication
ES1 - Internal Machining and Solid Machined Backing Rings For Circumferential Butt
Welds
ES21 - Internal Machining and Fit-up of GTAW Root Pass Circumferential Butt Welds
ES24 - Pipe Bending Methods, Tolerances, Process and Material Requirements
ES35 - Nonsymmetrical Bevels and Joint Configurations for Butt Welds
ES45 - Recommended Practice for Local Post-Weld Heat Treatment
ES47 - Welding of Internally Clad Piping
ES49 - Guidelines for Installation of Integrally Reinforced Branch Connection Outlet
Fitting
Cleaning, Painting, and Shipping
ES5 - Cleaning of Fabricated Piping
ES29 - Internal Abrasive Blast Cleaning of Ferritic Piping Materials
ES31 - Standard for Protection of Ends of Fabricated Piping Assemblies
ES34 - Temporary Painting/Coating of Fabricated Piping
ES37 - Standard for Loading and Shipping of Piping Assemblies
Quality Control
ES3 - Fabricating Tolerances
ES11 - Permanent Marking on Piping Materials
ES22 - Recommended Practice for Color Coding of Piping Materials
ES32 - Tool Calibration
ES39 - Fabricating Tolerances for Grooved Piping Systems
ES41 - Standard for Material Control and Traceability of Piping Components
ES43 - Standard for Protection of Austenitic Stainless Steel and Nickel Alloy
Materials
Examination and Testing
ES4 - Hydrostatic Testing of Fabricated Piping
ES20 - Wall Thickness Measurement by Ultrasonic Examination
ES27 - "Visual Examination" The Purpose, Meaning and Limitation of the Term
ES42 - Standard for Positive Material Identification of Piping Components using
Portable X-Ray Emission Type Equipment
ES48 - Random Examination
Example of Engineering Standard
On the right of this page you will find a link (ES) that opens a small menu. Through this
menu you can open several pages that give you an example, how an Engineering
Standard might look like. Remember, the shown ES on this website only is an example!