Pipeline Mega Rule — 49 CFR §192.607

49 CFR §192.607, part of the Pipeline Mega Rule issued by PHMSA (Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration) in 2021, establishes requirements for verifying material properties of onshore steel transmission pipelines with unknown or incomplete records — a situation affecting thousands of miles of pre-1970 pipelines in the United States.

The regulation requires operators to determine minimum yield strength and ultimate tensile strength through nondestructive or destructive testing. For nondestructive tests, it specifies a minimum of 5 test locations in at least 2 circumferential quadrants with at least 10 total readings per pipe cylinder. The regulation is technology-agnostic — it does not name specific testing methods.

ABI/SSM® satisfies these nondestructive testing requirements by providing direct in-situ measurements of yield strength, UTS, and fracture toughness. The technology's capability for pipeline applications was established through the DOT/OPS report (1999), the L52280 interlaboratory study that included PRCI (2007), and the Gas Technology Institute validation study (2008).

Notably, PHMSA does not accept portable hardness testing results as replacements or estimates of tensile properties — making ABI® a field-deployable nondestructive method that satisfies §192.607's requirements for yield strength determination.