The Importance of Mechanical Integrity Inspection for Successful Capital Projects

It has been a common practice in the petrochemical industry to wait until a new process unit has been placed into service before performing the initial mechanical integrity inspection to establish corrosion rates of new piping systems and vessels. One problem with delaying inspection is that use of nominal thickness rather than measured thicknesses can result in significant errors in calculated corrosion rates as a result of the mill tolerances. This can mask potentially hazardous conditions, or cause concern where none is really warranted. Involvement of the refinery's inspection department in a capital project can significantly improve quality, reduce cost, and ensure compliance. The objectives of this presentation are to provide the owner operator's inspection group with: 1) justification for involvement in capital projects; 2) effective roles for the refinery inspection department in capital projects; 3) justification for performing vendor surveillance in capital projects; and 4) the technical advantages from performing pre-service baseline inspections.