EQUIPMENT FITNESS FOR SERVICE ASSESSMENT
Assessing Degraded Equipment for Continued Service.

Through in-service degradation, or as a result of deficiencies in original manufacture, equipment is identified as being at risk of failure through cracking or overload. The most economic Run/Repair/Replace decisions can be made only if a full understanding of the residual strength and life the equipment is available.

Bureau Veritas provides analysis services to determine the remaining integrity and life of degraded or defective equipment. This comprises analysis of the equipment to determine the remaining strength capacity, based on detailed stress analysis and defect tolerance assessment. Then, combined with data on the rate of ongoing degradation, the remaining safe life can be identified.

Detailed calculation of stresses may be undertaken using in-house Finite Element Analysis (FEA) capability and may be supplemented with in-situ stress measurement using strain gauge techniques.

Where components are cracked, computer based defect tolerance assessment will indicate whether the equipment is at risk of sudden failure. In addition, with knowledge of the stress fields in the crack region, it is possible to predict the rate of fatigue crack growth to indicate remaining service life.

Statistical methods may be applied in cases where distributions of damage (for example, thinning or pitting) to identify extreme values of damage from a sample of data and to characterise trends in the degradation.

What are the key benefits?

- Determination of fitness for service of degraded (thinned, materially damaged, cracked) equipment.
- Estimation of remaining safe life.
- Identification of the most appropriate run, repair, replace decision.
- Identification of inspection needs to monitor ongoing degradation.
- Demonstration of due care with regard to operating equipment in a safe manner.
- Maintain compliance with Standards and regulations for operation of equipment.
- Provide audit trail of Integrity and risk management.
- Manage plant integrity to control lost production.