Fitness-for-Service of Corroded Buried Pipes
When planning or performing a wall thickness inspection of buried pipe, it is necessary to establish the procedure to be used in evaluating the thickness readings, and determine the pipe’s fitness-for-service (FFS), which will be the basis of run-or-repair decisions.
We are currently working with EPRI to develop such a procedure. This article is intended to provide a broad brush of the FFS process for buried pipe.
An industry that has come to grips with this process for over 30 years is the oil and gas pipeline industry. They use ASME B31G to assess the integrity of corroded pipelines. The ASME B31G procedure is simple, conservative, and … not applicable to nuclear plant buried pipes. The reason is that B31G contains assumptions regarding the operating loads, the operating pressure stress, and the equivalency to a hydrotest which are not applicable to ASME B31.1 or ASME III lines.
Another reference would be ASME XI Code Case N-597 and API 579 / ASME FFS-1, for safety-related and non-safety related pipes respectively. But neither document explicitly addresses buried pipes.
|
|
|
|
The engineering consulting operations of M&D Professional Services (www.mdpsi.com) has become the Richland, Washington office of Becht Engineering (www.becht.com and www.bechtns.com), effective April 28, 2012.
The office in Richland will become a regional office of Becht Engineering and a division of Becht Nuclear Services, managed by Jack Cole, PE reporting to George Antaki, PE, Becht Engineering Chief Nuclear Engineer.
Becht Engineering offers the services of world-renowned subject matter experts in equipment, systems, nuclear and industrial plant technical troubleshooting and laser scanning. We also provide senior technical staff to augment our client’s staff for shutdowns, special operations, turnarounds or capital projects.
Please refer to our websites for a more comprehensive view of our services. Please forward inquiries to info@becht.com
For a PDF of our Becht Nuclear Winter 2012 Newsletter ,
please click here.
To view past copies of the Becht Nuclear Newsletters, please click here.
Seismic Design and Retrofit of Essential Systems in Nuclear Power Plants by Mr. George Antaki, Becht Engineering Company, and Dr. Jim Johnson, Consulting Engineer
1. Seismic Regulatory Requirements for Nuclear Power Plants.
In the United States nuclear power plants are, by regulation, designed to address these three damage mechanisms.
|
|
|