# ASME BPVC Section V (Nondestructive Examination)

> ASME Boiler and Pressure Vessel Code Section V, Nondestructive Examination, specifies the methods, procedures, equipment checks and personnel requirements for NDT referenced by the other ASME code sections; acceptance criteria are set by the referencing section, not by Section V.

- Source: https://amps.global/glossary/asme-bpvc-section-v/
- Type: Glossary
- Published: 2026-09-05
- Tags: standards

## Key facts

- Articles by method: 2 radiography, 4 UT of welds, 5 UT of materials, 6 liquid penetrant, 7 magnetic particle, 8 eddy current, 9 visual, 10 leak testing, 12 and 13 acoustic emission, 19 guided wave
- Article 1 gives general requirements, including written procedures with essential variables and personnel qualification per the employer's written practice
- Article 4 and 5 require ultrasonic instrument checks such as screen height and amplitude control linearity; AMPS publishes a free calculator
- Revised on a two-year cycle; the edition invoked by the construction code applies

Also known as: ASME V, ASME Section V, ASME BPVC-V.

## How it is used

A construction or in-service code (ASME VIII, B31.3, API 510) says which welds to examine and what is acceptable, and points to Section V for how to do the examination. Inspection companies write their procedures to Section V articles and qualify them by demonstration where required.

## Section V in AMPS

The AMPS free NDT tool for horizontal and vertical linearity follows the ASME V practice for evaluating pulse-echo instrument performance without electronic measurement instruments. Because AMPS generates reports from your own Word templates, the code clause, acceptance criteria and revision block stay exactly as your QA system wrote them, with job data filled in automatically.

## Related pages

- [Free UT linearity tool (ASME V)](https://amps.global/ndt-tools/linearity/)
- [Ultrasonic testing (UT)](https://amps.global/glossary/ultrasonic-testing/)
- [ASME BPVC Section VIII](https://amps.global/glossary/asme-bpvc-section-viii/)

## Sources

- [ASME Boiler and Pressure Vessel Code](https://www.asme.org/codes-standards/bpvc-standards)
- [ASME Boiler and Pressure Vessel Code on Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ASME_Boiler_and_Pressure_Vessel_Code)