A.C. Gysbers: About the Author
Corporate Principal Materials Engineer, The Equity Engineering Group, Inc.
Mr. Gysbers has spent his 33 years with ExxonMobil primarily with its Canadian Affiliate Imperial Oil in a variety of roles related to materials, corrosion and inspection of petroleum refining, oils sands upgrading and downstream distribution (tanks and piping) systems. He retired as a Senior Engineering Advisor with worldwide corporate recognition as a troubleshooter and systems developer for these technical areas. Mr. Gysbers was the initial developer of corporate Risk-Based Inspection (RBI) techniques starting in the early 90's and has focused on developing tools and systems for use at plant levels to facilitate consistent application of degradation assessments, RBI, thickness data analysis and inspection processes. He was primary materials consultant for every major project for the last 20 years for Imperial Oil, selecting materials and performing NPQC for a wide variety of unit revamps and grass root refinery units. In addition all above ground storage tank inspections and assessments were subject to review and acceptance in his role as expert for the organization. Through active participation through NACE International STG 34, he has led several task groups and activities in developing standards for refining industry corrosion detection and prevention. In 2011 he joined Equity Engineering Group where he continues to provide materials, corrosion and inspection consulting support to clients primarily in the petroleum refining industry.
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Published Articles
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March/April 2017 Inspectioneering JournalBy A.C. Gysbers at The Equity Engineering Group, Inc.Integrity Operating Windows (IOWs) have a subset of operating variables that are important for degradation monitoring, but may not have direct operational controls. Per API RP 584 Integrity Operating Windows, these are known as IOW Informational Limits, which are often neglected or misunderstood by operations or technical personnel within a plant.
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September/October 2015 Inspectioneering JournalBy A.C. Gysbers at The Equity Engineering Group, Inc.This article addresses a debate mechanical integrity professionals in the O&G and Chemical Processing industries periodically have about how thickness data gathered during a thickness monitoring inspection (TMI) should be recorded.
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March/April 2015 Inspectioneering JournalBy A.C. Gysbers at The Equity Engineering Group, Inc.
The tubes of heat exchangers (HX), whether for a shell and tube bundle or an airfin, are typically subject to some form of nondestructive examination (NDE) to try and quantify the remaining wall thicknesses and corrosion rates to help a plant to determine remaining life or the need for intervention via re-tubing or replacement of these thin wall components.
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July/August 2014 Inspectioneering JournalBy A.C. Gysbers at The Equity Engineering Group, Inc.One of the more common inspection monitoring programs for pressure vessels is to perform thickness measurement at Corrosion Monitoring Locations (CMLs) to allow monitoring of minimum thicknesses and provide estimates for corrosion rates. These minimum thicknesses and corrosion rates are critical in supporting risk based inspection techniques or in setting half-life prescriptive re-inspection intervals.
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September/October 2013 Inspectioneering JournalBy A.C. Gysbers at The Equity Engineering Group, Inc.This article is the fifth 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.
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May/June 2013 Inspectioneering JournalBy A.C. Gysbers at The Equity Engineering Group, Inc.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.
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A Discussion on the Piping Thickness Management Process: Data Collection with Ultrasonics and Radiography
January/February 2013 Inspectioneering JournalBy A.C. Gysbers at The Equity Engineering Group, Inc.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.
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November/December 2012 Inspectioneering JournalBy A.C. Gysbers at The Equity Engineering Group, Inc.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.
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September/October 2012 Inspectioneering JournalBy A.C. Gysbers at The Equity Engineering Group, Inc.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.
