Regulations last checked for updates: May 03, 2025

Title 46 - Shipping last revised: Mar 17, 2025
§ 58.20-25 - Tests.

(a) All pressure vessels, compressors, piping, and direct expansion cooling coils must be leak tested after installation to their design pressures, hydrostatically or pneumatically.

(b) No pneumatic tests in refrigeration systems aboard ships must be made at pressures exceeding the design pressure of the part of the system being tested. Pneumatic tests may be made with the refrigerant in the system. If the refrigerant has been removed, oil-pumped dry nitrogen or bone-dry carbon dioxide with a detectable amount of the refrigerant added should be used as a testing medium. (Carbon dioxide should not be used to leak test an ammonia system.) In no case should air, oxygen, any flammable gas or any flammable mixture of gases be used for testing.

authority: 43 U.S.C. 1333; 46 U.S.C. 3306,3703; E.O. 12234, 45 FR 58801, 3 CFR, 1980 Comp., p. 277; Department of Homeland Security Delegation No. 00170.1, Revision No. 01.3
source: CGFR 68-82, 33 FR 18878, Dec. 18, 1968, unless otherwise noted.
cite as: 46 CFR 58.20-25