The Pressure Equipment Regulations 1999

2.4.    DESIGN

Means of examination

(a) Pressure equipment must be designed and constructed so that all necessary examinations to ensure safety can be carried out;

(b) Means of determining the internal condition of the equipment must be available, where it is necessary to ensure the continued safety of the equipment, such as access openings, allowing physical access to the inside of the pressure equipment so that appropriate examinations can be carried out safely and ergonomically;

(c) Other means of ensuring the safe condition of the pressure equipment may be applied:

• where it is too small for physical internal access, or

• where opening the pressure equipment would adversely affect the inside, or

• where the substance contained has been shown not to be harmful to the material from which the pressure equipment is made and no other internal degradation mechanisms are reasonably foreseeable.