Inspectioneering and PinnacleART co-hosted their 5th Meeting of the Minds roundtable last November in Atlanta. This meeting’s focus was on notable technologies and how they are changing the MI landscape.

API RP 578 identifies 7 areas of consideration & general concern in material verification, mainly focusing on systems most susceptible to corrosion. Knowing which assets are at high-risk for degradation & what elements should be tested is critical...

In this latest guest blog, our friends at Olympus America share some of their most frequently fielded questions regarding X-Ray Flourescence (XRF) and some considerations for using XRF for Positive Material Identification (PMI).

The best approach for better inspection confidence and long term asset integrity is to conduct baseline inspections upon receipt of an asset. Baseline inspection can save millions by providing accurate baseline information for later comparisons and...

The instrumentation available to detect inadvertent material substitutions through positive material identification (PMI) has never been more available, portable or powerful than it is today. For one industrial services company, Tacten Industrial,...

Auto-refrigeration can impose low temperatures onto process vessels and piping causing them to be at risk of brittle fracture, the sudden break-before leak phenomena that can result in catastrophic rupture of the equipment.

In numerous industries that require elemental and material testing, including the oil and gas, power generation, and petrochemical industries, positive material identification (PMI) is at the forefront of any operation. In fact, an increasing number...

An issue that arises frequently in the oil and gas industry is poor or missing documentation of pressure vessels. It is common in the industry to repurpose old equipment, bring equipment back into operation after a long period of time out of...

In 2013 Inspectioneering published content covering a wide array of topics, from risk-based inspection, to advanced nondestructive testing methods, to pipeline integrity management systems. Last year, we published more content than any year prior;...

A recent High Temperature Hydrogen Attack (HTHA) failure atarefineryinthestateofWashingtonwasa“wakeupcall” to our industry. On April 2, 2010, the shell of a feed-effluent heat exchanger in the Naphtha Hydrotreating (NHT) unit at the Tesoro...

In the first article in this series entitled How to Put It All Together - Guide to Organizing a Successful PEI Program, (1) I provided an overview of the necessary Management Systems (MS) for a successful program to achieve excellence in pressure...

How long does it take for you to receive reports after an inspection has been completed? A week? A month? Does the data come from multiple sources with no way of knowing if it has been manipulated? Traditional inspection contractors do not have...

Unfortunately there is a recurring theme of pressure equipment integrity incidents in the hydrocarbon process industry which has been identified by the API and that is leaks and fires caused by the inadvertent substitution of materials of...

High temperature sulfidation is probably the most common high temperature corrosion nemesis in the refining industry, since there are very few “sweet” refineries still in operation. Sulfidation corrosion typically is of concern in sour oil...

This is the first of a series of articles that outlines the 101 essential elements that need to be in place, and functioning well, to preserve and protect the reliability and integrity of pressure equipment (vessels, exchangers, furnaces, boilers,...

In August of 1993, the hydrocarbon process industry once again experienced a catastrophic loss when a major coker unit fire occurred in Louisiana. The cause of that incident was not unlike many others that have occurred over the years throughout...