What goes into a heat exchanger MDB
A heat exchanger Manufacturing Data Book documents that the exchanger was designed, fabricated, welded, inspected and tested in accordance with the contract and the applicable code. Typical contents include the design package and datasheet, material test reports for the shell, channel, tubes, tubesheets and flanges (often EN 10204 3.1 or 3.2), welding documentation (WPS, PQR and welder qualifications) including the tube-to-tubesheet weld procedure and records, NDE reports per the examination plan, tube-to-tubesheet joint records (welding and/or expansion), the hydrostatic test reports for both the shell side and the tube side, heat-treatment and surface-treatment records, drawings (engineering and as-built), and the Declaration of Conformity, U-stamp Manufacturer's Data Report or equivalent certification. The exact list depends on the code, the TEMA class and the contract.
Normative context: ASME VIII, TEMA, PED and EN 13445
Shell-and-tube heat exchangers are commonly designed and built to ASME BPVC Section VIII (often with a U-stamp and Manufacturer's Data Report) and to the mechanical standards of TEMA (classes R, C and B for different service severities). In Europe they fall under the Pressure Equipment Directive (PED 2014/68/EU), frequently using EN 13445 as the design standard, with notified-body involvement for higher categories. Welding qualification follows ASME Section IX or EN ISO 15614 / EN ISO 9606, and the tube-to-tubesheet joint typically has its own qualified procedure. An MDB platform should reflect the documentation each of these regimes requires rather than impose its own interpretation.
Why a generic document workflow falls short
A heat exchanger concentrates a lot of documentation into one item: hundreds of tubes, the tube-to-tubesheet joints, two pressure boundaries to test separately, and material traceability across shell, channel, tubes and internals. Tracking that in spreadsheets and folders, assembling it in Acrobat and delivering it by file transfer is workable but fragile. A missing tube mill certificate, a tube-to-tubesheet record filed against the wrong unit, or a data book assembled before the shell-side hydrotest is signed are the kind of errors that appear at the worst moment — during the final review before shipment.
How MDB Builder helps
MDB Builder gives a heat exchanger fabricator a sector-specific structure on day one, with the chapters that ASME and PED work typically require — including dedicated sections for tube material, tube-to-tubesheet records and the separate shell-side and tube-side hydrotests. Tube and plate suppliers and NDE subcontractors upload directly into the sections they own, without an account. Each document is tracked with its revision status (IFR / IFA / Approved), and the platform assembles the final bookmarked MDB automatically, rebuilding it when a revision lands. The client, notified body or authorised inspector reviews it online and approves it with a single action.
What MDB Builder does not do
MDB Builder does not perform thermal or mechanical design, does not size tube bundles, and does not replace the responsibilities of the notified body, the authorised inspector or the TPI. It is a documentation workflow platform: it gives the fabricator the structure, supplier collaboration and PDF assembly that a modern heat exchanger MDB needs, while the engineering, welding, examination and inspection content comes from the parties qualified to produce it.