Loss of Primary Containment (LOPC) or simply leaks in our process facilities is an all too common event. Sometimes we get lucky and it is a minor event but relying on luck is not any way to keep our plant’s safe and reliable. However, other times the leak leads to a serious event and we make the local or national news or worse yet; someone gets injured or loses their life!
Our process safety management programs and particularly our Mechanical Integrity program are designed to help prevent/reduce these type events. Our inspection programs drive the testing and inspections of your equipment and help in identifying problem areas, but how can we do better? We can do better by knowing what we are looking for. Are we looking at a corrosion mechanism that is a general type corrosion? Or is it a corrosion type that is only localized? Or is it a corrosion mechanism that causes cracking? And the list goes on…. The point is you need to know what type of corrosion your looking for to improve your chance of finding the corrosion before it becomes a LOPC/Leak/Event.
The corrosion knowledge of your plant Engineers and Inspectors varys widely but is absolutely vital to your MI/Inspection program. A Damage Mechanism review is common if you are using a risked based inspection program, but often the inspectors looking for the corrosion are only following the inspection instructions of the program rather than understand what they are really looking for. So how do you know what I need to look for? API-571 “Damage Mechanisms affecting Fixed Equipment in the Refining Industry” is an excellent resource of information to assist your plant in understanding where the corrosion is most likely to occur and how best to inspect your systems to find it. Note: Although the standard was written for the refining industry, the damage types and how to inspect for them can be used in many industries. It can be difficult to find time for Training and Education and it can be perceived to be expensive, but it is absolutely required for a good inspection program. API-571 is an excellent resource for you to use in improving the corrosion knowledge of your work force.
API-571 has several hundred pages of information which can sound overwhelming, however, it is separated into 60 corrosion mechanisms that help to organize and make the document very useable. Additionally, there are Process Unit-PFD’s with the expected damage mechanisms identified in Section 5.2 of the standard. This makes understanding the potential damage mechanisms for each unit, how to inspect for those mechanisms very simple. I will give a detailed example with next month’s blog, but in the meantime have one of your engineer’s or inspector’s review a common damage mechanism for their area and share it with their group as a learning exercise.
Actions to Take:
1) Review your inspection program and verify that is has corrosion/damage mechanisms identified for your equipment.
2) Complete a quick review of API-571.
3) Review a damage mechanism of interest to you and write down a few things you learned.
4) Share what you learned with your group.