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As oil and natural gas production and consumption worldwide experience modest increases due to the reopening and recovery of markets following the COVID-19 pandemic, the demand for in-service uprates of existing facilities have followed suit. The desired increase in operational and design flow rates and the variety of oil, natural gas, and refined petroleum product transported has translated into elevated operational temperature requirements at these facilities.
Stress Engineering Services Canada (SESC) has responded to this demand by assisting operators across North America with detailed fitness for service assessments, including piping stress analyses and engineering critical assessments (ECAs) of terminal manifolds, connecting mainlines, tank lines, and pump stations. SESC leverages finite element analysis (FEA) packages such as AutoPIPE, Caesar II, and Abaqus to perform these assessments. Through our proven experience with code requirements in B31.3, B31.4, B31.8, CSA Z662, etc., we assist operators with interpreting code and regulatory requirements to define facility-specific acceptance criteria. Specifically, SESC has shown the benefits of performing comprehensive analyses that balance the requirements of codes, safe operations, hazard mitigation, and cost. As an example, SESC has shown that stress intensity factors (SIFs) and flexibility factors used in codes for elbows and tees can be unconservative, depending on the type of analysis that is implemented. To reduce the risk due to this potential lack of conservatism, SESC performs detailed FEA to estimate the piping stresses, strains, and displacements more accurately.
SESC complements these capabilities with an extensive history of performing site inspections for dimensional and material verification/validation, in-situ testing, and field monitoring (e.g., strain gauging, acoustic emissions testing (AET), etc.), all with the goal of confirming facility reliability and resiliency at these higher operating temperatures.
For more information about Stress Engineering, please visit www.stress.com or contact Dr. Farrow at [email protected] or Tom Raptis at [email protected]
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