OMAE2012
July 1-6, 2012, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
OMAE2012-83248
Equipment factor
Inspection factor Health, safety and
Condition factor environmental challenges
Design factor
Damage factor
Process factor
Likelihood
Plant
Location vulnerable to
Component System Unit and
degradation and/or failure
proximity
Repair/
replacement
cost
Inspection
Outage Compensation
cost
cost cost to injury
Figure 2: Development of consequence scenario
The I&M of O&G production and process facilities is content). The operators have databases containing historical
carried out by experts who have considerable experience and data about corrosion and erosion, wall thickness reduction,
are able to bring a large body of knowledge, to solving a current status of sand production and quality of the product,
variety of problems. However, the frequent job changing of etc. This data together with expert knowledge has been used to
personnel appointed for inspection planning causes problems identify the critical locations of a particular production plant
in transferring knowledge and experience. Ahmad et al. [53] and to develop and update plant maintenance and inspection
developed a knowledge-based expert system for acquisition of strategies. However, inspection planning is challenging due to
experiential knowledge, rule extraction from expert opinion the uncertainties present in human involvement as well as the
and representation of the knowledge for solving problems. The cumbersome decision processes. In this context, ineffective
output of their system provides the documentation of informal inspection planning could lead to undiscovered degradation,
and qualitative knowledge together with a prototype expert which may cause catastrophic failure with fatalities.
system for eliciting details of defects in structures, empirically Essentially, inspections are recommended based on historical
assessing the severity of the defect and recommending a series data, engineering judgments and current well stream content
of remedial actions. (e.g. amount of sand, water, CO2, and H2S). For example, it is
well known that there is a high possibility of: corrosion in
3 INDUSTRIAL CHALLENGE dead-legs and blind flanges along piping due to the standstill
product; erosion due to sand particles in the pipeline sections
Many of the production facilities on the Norwegian just after the choke valves; etc. The degradation is measured
Continental Shelf (NCS) have exceeded their design life. based on the remaining wall thickness; the wall thickness
Static mechanical equipment, such as valves, separators, tanks, degradation acceptance criteria and recommendations are
vessels, pipelines, etc., have undergone inherent degradation found in, for example, ASME B31.3. When the remaining
due to ageing, corrosion, erosion, etc. Often the degradation wall thickness reaches Tmin3 (see Figure 8), the technical
rates vary over the lifetime due to changes in the produced condition is assumed to be virtually zero (see Figure 8).
O&G well stream (e.g. changes in CO2, H2S, water, and sand
The wall thicknesses of static mechanical equipment is • Wastage of money occurs at the planning stage as some
measured during inspections using Non-Destructive Testing planned locations and/or equipment are not being
(NDT) methods such as radiography, ultrasonic testing, pulsed implemented during PM shutdown.
eddy current, etc. However, in ageing platforms, where the
design life has passed and the production is fast reducing, it is In general in the North Sea, the influence of the
a challenge to uphold the performance and technical integrity engineering function has declined to a worrying level, and the
of the facility whilst reducing the costs. The following technical authorities are under pressure, often reacting to
includes some of the challenges pertaining to ageing immediate operational problems rather than taking a strategic
production and process facilities. role to provide expertise and judgment on key operational
engineering issues [54]. Hence, it is vital to mechanize the
• The preventive maintenance (PM) shutdown periods inspection-planning process to maintain a constant quality
are very limited due to tight production schedules and level over all the inspection packages, to meet immediate
budgetary restrictions. Hence, it is not possible to carry out operational problems and systematically incorporate the
many inspections within the available shutdown time. locations/equipment that are not inspected during a stipulated
• There is a high number of pieces of static mechanical time period. Although several modeling methods and
equipment that have not been inspected since the date of algorithms have been proposed for use in inspection planning,
installation. no method is suitable to face all the challenges specified
• Often we find that the measured wall thickness data is above. Hence, in order meet those challenges, it is paramount
not reliable due to poor interpretation of NDT results. to mechanize the inspection-planning process. This would
• Personnel appointed for inspection planning frequently enable all the locations/equipment for inspection to be
change jobs, which results in new personnel taking over the systematically dealt with and would maintain a constant
inspection planning. This makes the problem more quality level in inspection programs over the time period.
complicated due to problems in transferring knowledge and Figure 9 illustrates a framework to incorporate the socio-
experience. technical aspects of I&M related activities.
• The quality of the inspection programs made by a
newly recruited inspection planner is relatively lower (due to The data available in the PIDB provides information about
less experience and familiarity about the inspection process) past inspection frequency, current wall thickness, inspection
than that of the inspection planner who has relatively high method, findings, etc. Having a reliable and robust approach
experience (i.e. the variation of quality from one inspection for establishing I&M plans is vital for maintenance engineers
program to the other needs to be mitigated). to cut down on the expenditures arising from frequent
• The views of personnel experienced in carrying out inspections (which might not be necessary), rejection of
inspection programs also seem to be narrow. This could be recommended inspections and unnecessary maintenance
due to the lack of an holistic overview about the problem shutdowns; and to take effective PM actions before an
situation and a tendency to depend on current findings instead accident actually takes place. Hence, it is vital to have a
of making real engineering judgments. technique that can incorporate the subjective knowledge along
• Based on the time, mood and/or state of mind of the with the objective information to develop a practical model
person who is carrying out inspection planning, the extent of which is simple to use, flexible enough to be modified
the usage of engineering judgment and knowledge can be according to the requirements of different sections of the
limited. plant, and able to incorporate field data. Figure 10 illustrates a
detailed version of a practical model (retrieved from Figure 9)
that can be used to mechanize inspection planning.
The mechanization of inspection planning would reduce misinterpretations will result in the failure to reduce or
the ad hoc planning techniques currently used in I&M eliminate significant sources of risk. The suggested method
engineering disciplines. would also help inspection analyses and evaluations to be
performed in a well-planned manner, avoiding maintenance
4 CONCLUSIONS effort being spent in less important areas and ensuring it is
spent in highly important areas. In the main, the mechanized
An effective use of resources can be achieved by using approach suggested in this manuscript would help reduce the
effective inspection decisions to guide where and when to cumbersome and repetitive work that is currently performed
perform inspection, maintenance, modification or repair. by inspection planners.
Based on a literature review, this paper underlines the state-of-
the-art of inspection for the maintenance of static mechanical 5 REFERENCES
equipment on ageing assets. The inspection methodologies
are identified and grouped based on applications, input data [1] Hu, H., Cheng, G., Yun, Li., Tang, Y., (2009), ‘Risk-
and output data. The review of identified methodologies
indicates that there is no unique way to perform inspection based maintenance strategy and its applications in a
planning and implementation. The application of these petrochemical reforming reaction system’, Journal of
methodologies highly depends on the depth on the analysis, Loss Prevention in the Process Industries 22(4), 392-
area of application and quality of results. Other than this, the 397.
experience of analysts in using these methodologies is also an [2] Tan, J.S. and Kramer, M.A., (1997), ‘A general
important factor to consider.
framework for preventive maintenance optimization
The proposed approach addresses some of the inherent in chemical process operations’, Computers and
drawbacks present in the inspection analysis and planning Chemical Engineering, 21(12), 1451-1469.
approaches such as uncertainty, performing sensitivity [3] CAP 718, (2002), ‘Human factors in aircraft
analysis, reducing the possibility of missing information and maintenance and inspection’, Civil Aviation
data when making inspection recommendations, etc. Any Authority, ISBN 0860398366,
decision based on non-effective data incorporation may
http://www.caa.co.uk/docs/109/CAP718%20
generate non-essential maintenance efforts. These