Successful PVP Conference Reflects International Scope of the Industry

Successful PVP Conference Reflects International Scope of the Industry Successful PVP Conference Reflects International Scope of the Industry Successful PVP Conference Reflects International Scope of the Industry ASME President Madiha Kotb (left) and PVP Conference Chair Mike Nitzel (right) present the ASME Dedicated Service Award to Kunio Hasegawa at the meeting's Honors and Awards Luncheon. This years ASME Pressure Vessels and Piping Conference was the most successful in the meetings 45-year history. A record crowd of nearly 1,100 people from 47 countries attended the conference, which took place at the Paris Marriott Rive Gauche Hotel and Conference Center in Paris, France, from July 14-18. The ASME Pressure Vessels and Piping Division is the primary sponsor of the PVP-2013 Conference, with participation by the ASME Nondestructive Evaluation (NDE) Engineering Division. Conference organizers noted that there was an especially strong Asian presence at this years meeting, with nearly 300 attendees hailing from Japan, China, Korea and Taiwan. Other countries represented at the 2013 PVP Conference included the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Canada, Germany, Italy and Brazil. I was really impressed by this year's event, said ASME President Madiha El Mehelmy Kotb, who attended the conference along with President-Nominee Robert Sims, and Past Presidents Marc Goldsmith and Robert Simmons. There was a really great turnout, and with attendees from all over the globe, it was a truly international event. (From left) ASME Past President Sam Zamrik, PVP Division Senator Artin Dermenjian, award winner William Bees, and ASME President Madiha Kotb at the luncheon, where Bees received the 2013 ASME S. Y. Zamrik Pressure Vessels and Piping Medal. Mike Nitzel, chair of the PVP conference concurred, adding, Bringing the PVP conference to Paris this year was particularly exciting.   We attracted a truly global audience, and both the conference and the PVP Division continue to address the challenges and promote solutions for the pressure vessels and piping industry. This years conference program was comprised of more than 175 paper and panel sessions, arranged into nearly 200 technical and panel discussion sessions. In addition, the conference featured several tutorials and workshops, and the annual NDE and Software Demonstration Forums. A major highlight of the program was the conference plenary session, The International Scene of Pressure Vessels and Piping, featuring Anne Chaudouet of the Technical Center for the Mechanical Industry in Senlis, France, and Richard Barnes of ANRIC Enterprises in Toronto, Canada. A number of awards were presented at the conference during the 2013 Honors and Awards Luncheon, including the highest award presented by the PVP Division, the 2013 ASME S. Y. Zamrik Pressure Vessels and Piping Medal, which was presented by ASME President Madiha Kotb and former President Sam Zamrik to ASME Fellow William J. Bees. The award recognizes Bees outstanding contributions to the Pressure Vessels and Piping Division and to the technology related to the pressure vessels and piping industry. Bees, formerly of Babcock Wilcox Nuclear Equipment Engineering Division and currently an engineering consultant, has had a distinguished career in the pressure vessel design field for more than 46 years. He has also been a longtime volunteer on several ASME Codes and Standards subcommittees and subgroups. The Software Demonstration Forum was one of the PVP-2013 Conference's many highlights. Also during the luncheon, Kotb and Zamrik presented ASME Dedicated Service Awards, which recognize outstanding voluntary service to the Society, to Jim Corey, Kunio Hasegawa and Ash Khare. In addition, PVP Division Chair Mike Nitzel presented the 2013 S. S. Chen Pressure Vessels and Piping Division Outstanding Service Award to Claude Faidy. This award recognizes Faidys outstanding volunteer support of the PVP Division, demonstrated through prolonged and committed service, devotion and enthusiasm. Faidy, formerly of Electricité de France, is a consulting engineer with CF International - Structural Integrity Engineering.   The winners of another PVP Conference highpoint - the 21st Rudy Scavuzzo Student Paper Symposium and Competition - were also announced at the Honors and Awards Luncheon. In the bachelors and masters degree category, P. G. Pritchard of North Carolina State University was named author of the winning paper for Constitutive Modeling of High Temperature Uniaxial Creep-Fatigue and Creep-Ratcheting Responses of Alloy 617. The first runner-up prize for an undergraduate or graduate student went to A Method for Prediction of Forming Strain for Cold Stamping Formed Head Made of S30408 Austenitic Stainless Steel by Xiao Bo Zhu of Chinas Zhejiang University, while the second runner-up prize was given to Development of a Protocol to Determine Compressed Non-Asbestos Gaskets Minimum Operating Stress by Lucas Xavier of the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro in Brazil. In the Ph.D. category, top honors for winning paper went to Jian-Feng Wen from East China University of Science and Technology for Numerical Analyses of Interaction Behavior of Multiple Surface Cracks Using a Modified Creep-damage Model and Fracture Mechanics Approach. The first runner-up paper in this category was Coalesced Martensite in Pressure Vessel Steels by Hector Pous Romero of the University of Cambridge in England, while Buckling of High-Strength Steel Cylinders Under Cyclic Bending in the Inelastic Range by George E. Varelis from the University of Thessaly in Greece was named the second runner-up. Paper abstracts are currently being accepted for the 2014 ASME PVP Conference, which will take place next July in Anaheim, Calif. The deadline to submit and abstract is Nov. 11. For more information on submitting a paper abstract for the conference, visit www.asmeconferences.org/PVP2014.