Joe Frey, PE: About the Author
Power Practice Lead Engineer, Stress Engineering, Inc.
Joe Frey P.E. has over 35 years of experience in the utility industry in the design, construction, performance testing, and maintenance of gas, coal, and lignite fired power plants. He also has 20 years of experience providing emergency response assistance for the condition assessment and subsequent repair of piping and process equipment, including boilers, heat exchangers, deaerators and feed tanks, valves, and pipe supports. Mr. Frey has been involved with EPRI in developing repair methods for the industry since 1980. He has been a member of the ASME B31.1 Code committee for 25 years and past Chair from 2009 to 2015. He is currently the ASME Piping Code Committee B31 Vice Chair.
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Published Articles
This article introduces portions of a “Best-In-Class” Fitness-for-Service (FFS) program that includes the performance of regular visual inspections of pipe supports and hangers, coupled with in-situ load testing of suspect supports. This program can give the plant engineer the knowledge he needs to make sound operational and maintenance decisions.
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.
