Fitness-for-service (FFS) and engineering critical assessment (ECA) of piping, pipelines and process equipment

About this course

Codes for design and construction of pressure vessels, piping, pipelines, onshore/offshore structures, bridges, and buildings, process plants etc. contain acceptance criteria that are based on workmanship standards that may be somewhat arbitrary. During the construction phase or in service, there may be situations where materials properties or observed defects do not meet the strict code requirements. In such cases a FFS or ECA can be applied.

Such an approach is nowadays becoming accepted by many codes as it is recognized that the requirements or acceptance criteria inherent in the codes may be unnecessarily conservative. Using this alternative approach, it can be shown that the structure or component can be acceptable if the conditions for failure are not reached within its service life. 

Engineering structures and process equipment may be subjected to many possible damage or degradation mechanisms such as corrosion fatigue, environmental assisted cracking, and creep at higher temperatures etc. Failures may occur as brittle or ductile fracture when the critical conditions are reached. For FFS or ECA it is therefore imperative to identify the driving degradation mechanisms so that these can be accounted for by the engineering analysis. 

The first 3 days of the course (day 1 to day 3) cover the theoretical background for elastic and elastic plastic fracture mechanics and the fracture assessment diagram (FAD) methods, fatigue crack growth, and tearing analysis. The course will also give insight into the practical aspects of elastic - plastic fracture toughness (CTOD, J-integral) testing of weldments and the requirements to non-destructive testing for flaw sizing and development of alternative flaw acceptance criteria for pipeline installation. 

The course will also cover applications involving high strain due to lateral buckling, reeling installation, and high temperatures in clad pipelines as well as effect of fatigue loading due to vortex induced vibration (VIV) associated with free spans. The course covers inspection methods for FFS and ECA for integrity and remaining life assessments and it also covers integrity assessment of corrosion damage detected in pipelines and process equipment based on DNV-RP-F101 Corroded pipelines and API 579/ASME FFFS-1.

The fourth day (day 4) of the course, which is optional, covers an introduction of finite element modelling, definition of boundary conditions and material models and finite element analysis (FEA) based fracture mechanics analysis to generate stress/strain input to general design and ECA/FFS assessments.

Learning objectives

You will gain confidence in performing Option 1 and 2 analyses according to BS 7910: 2019 and will also be introduced to Option 3, which uses numerical analysis to generate a FAD and ductile tearing assessments. You will also become familiar with strain-based analyses based on DNV-RP-F108: 2019 and alternative methods.

Target group

The course is aimed at welding and inspection, structural, mechanical, construction, design, and maintenance engineers who require more knowledge of the application of fitness-for-service assessment methods for piping, pipelines, and process equipment.

About the trainers

	Dr. Jens P. Tronskar M.Sc., PhD, CEng, IWE, FWeldI, FSWS Senior Vice President and Chief Technology Officer Materials and Testing
Dr. Jens P. Tronskar M.Sc., PhD, CEng, IWE, FWeldI, FSWS obtained his M.Sc. degree in Materials’ Physics and Physical Metallurgy from the Technical University of Norway (NTH) in 1980 and was conferred Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) in Applied Fracture Mechanics by the National University (NUS) of Singapore in 2002. Dr. Tronskar is a certified International Welding Engineer (IWE), and a UK‐Engineering Council Charted Engineer (C.Eng.). He was elected Fellow of Singapore Welding Society (FSWS) in 2015 and Fellow of The Welding Institute in Cambridge, UK in 2018. Presently he is Chief Technology Officer for DNV’s Energy Systems in Singapore. He has more than 43 years of experience of materials technology research, failure investigations and deterministic/probabilistic fracture mechanics analyses/fitness‐for‐service analyses of structural, piping/process components and pipelines for the offshore and onshore oil and gas industry.  Dr. Tronskar has been involved in materials evaluation and testing for many North Sea field development projects since the early 80s. Dr. Tronskar has presented papers at international conferences in Europe, America, South America, Australia, Asia and North Africa. He has published more than 90 journal articles and peer reviewed conference papers on materials technology, welding and deterministic and probabilistic fracture mechanics analyses.
	Dr Yang, Zhengmao Principal Engineer Materials Advisory
Dr. Yang, Zhengmao, PhD, received his Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) degree in structural Engineering from the School of Civil and Environment Engineering (CEE), Nanyang Technological University (NTU) in 2005. Prior to his PhD degree, he received Bachelor (B.E.) degree in engineering mechanics from Tong Ji university in 1991, and Master (M.E.) degree in structural engineering from Huazhong university of science and technology in 2002. He worked as research fellow at Maritime Research Center in NTU for two years after receiving his PhD, in area of fatigue and fracture assessment of tubular joints for offshore structures. He has 8 years of experience in structural design, 7 years of experience in offshore pipeline design, and installation analysis, and 12 years of experience in fracture and fatigue assessment of offshore structures and subsea pipelines.  Dr. Yang has published his research contributions in more than ten (10) articles in peer‐reviewed journals on structural integrity assessments, structural reliability analysis, numerical modelling, etc. and presented in more than twenty (20) international conferences in Asia, Europe, Australia, and the United States.