Pressure vessels enter into many phases of human activity and@ consequently@ must be designed to meet a tremendous variety of applications with their associated engineering problems. The most important of these engineering problems concern various aspects of public safety and economics@ and are noncompetitive. Because these problems are the responsibility of the entire engineering community and are of national concern@ there has been a recognition by leaders in industry and government that the burden of finding solutions must be handled on a cooperative basis and that this effort should be supported by equitable contributions from industry and public funds. The primary vehicle for such cooperative action was organized in the form of the Pressure Vessel Research Committee (PVRC) by the Welding Research Council in 1945 at the instigation of ASME and other industry groups.