The In Service Inspector is responsible for assisting or performing inspections of in service equipment such as pressure vessels, boiler, fired heats and process piping, and reacting to the daily inspection needs of the Horizon Oil Sands plant.

Hey,rnI have question regarding mothballing,rnwhat are the method for mothballing the following equipment:rn rn- heat exchanger (internal and external)rn- Piping, valves and fitting (internal and external)rn- Tanks and pressure vessels (internal and external)rnregards and thanksrnMohammed AL ShehhirnInspection Engineerrn rn 

Chevron U.S.A. Inc. has reviewed Anamet, Inc.’s technical evaluation of the piping samples taken from the Chevron U.S.A. Richmond Refinery following the August 6, 2012 incident.

This article is the third of a series of articles that will focus on one critical sub process within a PEIP that is key in managing the integrity of process piping: thickness monitoring programs for internal corrosion. These articles will discuss what constitutes an effective piping thickness monitoring process and will present several practices that may be new to some readers, but these practices have produced beneficial results in other major piping reliability programs.

Piping failures still represent a frustrating and ongoing problem for processing plants. Failures are still commonly reported and contribute to large losses. In the author’s experience, piping represents the highest percentage of fixed equipment failures in petroleum refining. There are of course many factors within a pressure equipment integrity program (PEIP) that can contribute to piping integrity problems, including design issues, operating window compliance, management of change issues, etc.

An all too familiar scenario in power plants is one in which an inspection finding occurs late in an outage and consequently, the return to service date may need to be postponed to allow time for corrective action. Historically, cracks or thinned spots were typically repaired without question. In contrast to this, the use of a fitness-for-service evaluation in this scenario has long been common practice in the petrochemical industry. Competitive forces drove that industry to run with lower safety factors and more stringent engineering evaluations early in its development.

Piping failures still represent a frustrating and ongoing problem for processing plants (example in Figure 1). Failures are commonly reported and contribute to large losses. As well per the author’s experience, piping still represents the highest percentage of the number of fixed equipment failures in petroleum refining. There are of course many factors within a pressure equipment integrity program (PEIP) that can contribute to piping integrity problems including design issues, operating window compliance, management of change issues, etc.

I would like to ask to the forum if there is any standard, best practice, code or rule of thumb where specify the min. distance between welds (piping/vessels.

A self-propelled in-line inspection tool tested at Electric Power Research Institute and utilized in Europe can traverse a complex piping configuration and discriminate areas of metal loss. This tool is becoming available to inspect traditionally unpiggable piping such as: buried piping at nuclear plants, oil and gas terminals, refineries, industrial sites, cased pipeline crossings and distribution pipelines. In the past, these facilities have often deferred their inspections due to the cost to modify facilities for traditional flow driven in-line inspection tools or the cost to excavate to complete direct examination. A new line of tools being introduced by GE Energy's Industrial Solutions business, is becoming available with Single Point Access capabilities.

A self-propelled in-line inspection tool tested at Electric Power Research Institute and utilized in Europe can traverse a complex piping configuration and discriminate areas of metal loss. This tool is becoming available to inspect traditionally unpiggable piping such as: buried piping at nuclear plants, oil and gas terminals, refineries, industrial sites, cased pipeline crossings and distribution pipelines. In the past, these facilities have often deferred their inspections due to the cost to modify facilities for traditional flow driven in-line inspection tools or the cost to excavate to complete direct examination. A new line of tools being introduced by GE Energy's Industrial Solutions business, is becoming available with Single Point Access capabilities.

LOTIS utilizes laser profilometry to conduct internal steam reformer tube inspections. The data captured by LOTIS is exceptionally powerful when combined with our LifeQuest™ remaining life assessment capabilities, providing an integrated solution set for the process and syngas industries.

What would be the maximum amount of piping circuits in a refinery that one inspector can manager efficiently per API guidelines and where can I find this information?

Is there any certain criteria can be followed on reusing of bolts for pressure vessels and piping, or just blindly replace them once opened[Edited by Mohd Aboul Gheit on 05-Feb-12 04:42]

I would like to ask if any one try TSA "Thermal Spray Application" for piping to protect corrosion under insulation also I want to know if anyone try to apply Metallic thermal spray for top head of crude tower as a protection rather than Monel cladding and is it possible to uses this TSA for tray section as a protection for C.S tray section?ThxMohammad Bukhari,Saudi Aramco

In case of piping, weld is supposed to have all the good properties as in the parent metal. Then why elongation test is not done in PQR of pipe welding whereas it is done for testing material as per ASTM codes.

Can any body help/share the guide lines for OSBL pipe rack piping inspection philosophy?Regadrs,

InVista is a lightweight, hand-held ultrasonic in-line inspection tool (intelligent pig) capable of detecting pipeline wall loss and corrosion in unpiggable or difficult-to-inspect pipelines. The pipeline geometry inspection data captured by the InVista tool is exceptionally powerful when combined with the LifeQuest™ Pipeline fitness-for-service capabilities, providing an integrated solution set for the pipeline industry.