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TWI North America opens new office in Houston

TWI North America opens new office in Houston

TWI North America has relocated their office to the Energy Corridor on the west side of Houston.

The office location put us in the center of our key oil and gas clients in Houston, with many of them located in close proximity of our offices. The offices include a large training room and access to a metallurgical laboratory that is available to TWI.

We will initially offer consulting services to our local members, support membership and projects in Cambridge, and grow in response to the needs of our members.
New contact details below:

TWI North America, LLC
1505 Highway 6 South
Suite 380
Houston, TX USA 77077
Tel: +1 281 680 2000
Fax: +1 281 680 2004
Website (training services): www.twinorthamerica.com

John Aller , Managing Director - john.aller@twinorthamerica.com
Nadia Clark , Operations and Business Manager - nadia.clark@twinorthamerica.com

If you are in the Houston area, please drop in and let us show you around!

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Top 20 oil and gas companies meet in Texas for the first TWI's Oil and Gas Panel Meeting

Nick Zettlemoyer, consultant to ExxonMobil, discussing the role of Codes and Standards in the oil and gas sector
Nick Zettlemoyer, consultant to ExxonMobil, discussing the role of Codes and Standards in the oil and gas sector

A group of major companies in the oil and gas sector gathered in Houston late in January to attend the first TWI Oil and Gas Panel meeting.
Initiated by Amir Bahrami, the bi-annual event hosted 37 delegates with three main topics on their collective agenda.

  • Shared understanding of key challenges faced by the industry and the establishment of a consensus on the critical technical issues
  • To develop strategies for how those key challenges can be met with timely and effective solutions
  • To evaluate and influence TWI's current and future projects to address these issues

The meeting focused on hot topics of broad interest to the oil and gas industry:

Hydrogen embrittlement of subsea components

Paul Woollin from TWI highlighted hydrogen embrittlement due to cathodic protection in three different types of subsea components and materials.

TWI's current proposals on hydrogen embrittlement of duplex stainless steels and integrity of subsea dissimilar welds, and their main technical objectives were also reviewed. The main objective for the proposed duplex stainless steel project is to develop a reliable and quick qualification test for assessing materials resistance to hydrogen embrittlement.

The second objective was to evaluate the behaviour of buried flaws and come up with more realistic recommendations on NDT requirements, saving cost and time.

Fracture requirements and the integrity of Arctic steel structures

Sean Keay from Lloyds Register' gave a presentation concerning Arctic developments and some of the variations in codes and standards regarding fracture toughness requirements and testing for low temperature applications. This is an area of interest to the industry and TWI is developing a project to address some of the existing critical issues.

TWI North America Business Plan

John Aller presented TWI's plans to provide consultancy and testing services from the new Houston offices to North American members, including:

  • Technical consulting (ECA, FFS, RBI and development of materials and welding specifications in design phase)
  • Failure analysis including a metallurgical laboratory
  • Inspection consulting, services and plant integrity products

There was a good deal of interest from local members for these services.

Strain based design

Henryk Pisarski from TWI gave a presentation based on the work carried out on strain based integrity assessment, highlighting the remaining issues which need consideration when conducting ECAs.

Challenges with riser ECA design

The IntecSea representative Andre Nogueira gave a presentation on the issue of steel catenary risers engineering critical assessment challenges. He provided a variety of examples on SCR designs including Auger, Mardi Gras and North Star.

Reviewing standards

Nick Zettlemoyer from ExxonMobil gave a presentation on a potential sub-committee of the Oil and Gas Panel to review some of the current, critical standards.

Next meeting

Amir Bahrami closed the meeting with a brief regarding TWI's Core Research Programme and feedback on the day from the panel members. The consensus was to hold the panel meetings twice a year. Due to travel restrictions, it was suggested that the next meeting be in Houston again with a target date of September, 2010.

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New Underwater Digital Radiography Inspection system

Concept for engagement of the robot crawler on the riser with the assistance of a ROV
Concept for engagement of the robot crawler on the riser with the assistance of a ROV

TWI together with their project partners have recently completed an EC collaboration funded FP6 project called FlexiRiserTest (COOP-CT-2006-032680).

The work undertaken in this 2.5 year project has resulted in the development of a new prototype inspection system for the inspection of flexible risers. Existing radiography-based inspection of underwater structure uses film or phosphor imaging plates. These methods are time consuming because in-between each exposure to the radiation source both film and phosphor plates have to be returned to the surface for development and processing. It is believed that it is the first time that a digital flat panel detector has been used for underwater radiography inspection. The application of a marinised digital detector allows for rapid acquisition of radiographic images of the riser, and the results can be instantly relayed via an umbilical to a host computer located topside.

A robot crawler has been developed for deployment of the radiography based inspection technique. The robot is capable of crawling along the external surface of the flexible riser, and is also able to rotate 360° about the riser axis so that the riser can be completely imaged. The inspection technology has been tested to an equivalent water depth of 20 metres. The project partners are confident that much greater depths (>100m) are possible with further development and funding. The marinised detector technology is deployable now and can be used in underwater inspection solutions for TWI Member companies.

Future work includes more underwater trials including sea trials and further development to achieve deployment at greater depth. TWI is currently seeking sponsors for sea trials. For further information please contact ian.nicholson@twi.co.uk , or please visit the website www.flexirisertest.com .

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Variable amplitude fatigue testing of full-scale pipe joints

TWI's resonance fatigue testing laboratory
TWI's resonance fatigue testing laboratory

TWI's resonance fatigue testing laboratory

TWI has a total of seven resonance testing machines for full-scale fatigue testing of pipe joints accommodating diameters in the range 4 to 36" (100 to 914mm).

A rotating bending moment of constant amplitude is applied at the resonant frequency of the pipe, typically 25 to 30Hz, allowing high-cycle testing of riser girth welds to be carried out rapidly. In response to requests from clients, a method of reproducing the narrow band variable amplitude loading experienced by risers in deep water, has now been developed as shown in the diagram.

New control systems and software developed in-house, allow the required loading spectrum to be reproduced reliably at the resonant frequency of the full-scale pipe sample. This unique system is now being used for extreme high-cycle variable amplitude tests, up to 200 million cycles, on 16" (406mm) diameter pipe in a current Group Sponsored Project: 'Further study of fatigue damage to girth welds from low stresses in the loading spectrum'.

Other components such as pipe to forging joints, threaded pipe connectors or even solid components such as drive shafts can also be accommodated. Three of the machines have now been equipped for variable amplitude loading and are available for use by TWI Member companies.

Typical section of variable amplitude stress sequence for a riser Typical section of variable amplitude stress sequence for a riser

For further information, please contact structuralintegrity@twi.co.uk

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TWI receives Health and Safety certificate from Lloyd's Register CEO

Health and Safety certificate being received

In January 2010, TWI Ltd was presented with a certificate to mark its achievement of certification to OHSAS 18001 - Occupational Health and Safety Management System.

The certificate was presented to TWI's Chief Executive, Bob John, by Richard Sadler, CEO of Lloyd's Register Group and current President of The Welding Institute.

Richard Sadler, remarked on the very positive feedback he had heard from the LRQA assessor "The attainment of this standard shows TWI's commitment and desire to take safety to a higher level. All practical activities which reduce the risk help to take the business forward."

This standard specifies the requirements for an occupational health and safety management system, taking into account legal requirements and information about occupational health and safety risks.

As an already ISO 9001 registered organisation, TWI took the LRQA Prism approach to installing a Safety Management System (SMS). Over a period of approximately 12 months, the TWI team carefully planned and implemented the SMS in stages.

Each stage was then reviewed by the assessor over six visits. This new certificate complements TWI's existing certificated management systems for Quality (ISO 9001) and Environment (ISO 14001) to demonstrate the company's commitment to continuing improvement for customers, staff and the environment.

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Middle Eastern accolade for TWI speaker

TWI's Dr Brian Cane took centre stage at the world's leading corrosion conference in Bahrain recently, following his presentation on "Operational Excellence through Asset Maintenance Optimisation"

Shown here, the invited speaker receives recognition of his work from Dr Iba Al-Adel, a past National Association of Corrosion Engineers (NACE) President. The opening presentation at the 13th Middle East Corrosion Conference included a series of illustrative RISKWISE case studies by TWI and was attended by more than 600 delegates worldwide.

Dr Chi-Ming Lee from TWI's Materials and Corrosion Group also presented a paper on Corrosion Resistant Alloys at the conference.

For further information, please contact: oilandgas@twi.co.uk

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TWI member companies have free access to MI-21 Consumables database

A unique collection of data covering welding, brazing, soldering, spraying and surfacing consumables, and ferrous and non-ferrous metals from TWI and the World Metal Index.

MI-21 contains old and new products/standards grades, allowing the identification of materials both for new structures and those now in need of repair and maintenance, and for sourcing comparable products.

Standard grade(s) link to their source standard, and to products conforming to that grade, allowing the selection of alternatives. An expert reporting function can compare products/grades by individual elements and/or other properties.

The online subscription also includes access to non-digitised records via the Support Service (telephone, e-mail, fax.); help in searching the database is also provided.

For further information visit www.twi.co.uk/content/mi21_consdata.html or contact mi-21@twi.co.uk .

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Archive

Joint Welding Processes / Offshore Oil & Gas Technical Group Meeting

Weld overlay, weld cladding and the use of clad and lined materials for fabrication and inspection of sub-sea oil and gas equipment,
Wednesday 27 January 2010, Aberdeen
More details will follow

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Teletest inspects caissons

Teletest is a long-range ultrasonic or Guided Wave NDT Technique developed for detecting metal loss in pipe-work. It is a pulse-echo system aimed at testing large volumes of material from a single test point. This system was initially developed for detecting corrosion under insulation in petrochemical plant pipe-work, but it has found widespread use in other inspection situations where pipes or tubes are not accessible, for example where they are buried or encased in a sleeve.

Recently, trials were made using this system to inspect caissons on an offshore installation. Access to these caissons is difficult; however, Teletest has the ability to inspect the whole length of the caisson from the topside.

TWI
Figure 1 - Typical offshore installation

The aim of the inspection was to test the full length of the caisson in order to gain an understanding of its condition prior to removal. This allowed the use of new analysis techniques such as focusing and the Amplitude Map (A-Map).

TWI
Figure 2 - Location of the tool on the caisson

Teletest Focus' MultimodeTM system allowed the inspection of this caisson using both torsional and longitudinal wave modes and, due to the wall thickness of the caisson, the torsional mode was found to be the preferred mode for this application.

TWI
Figure 3 - DAC curve for the caisson

From the results it was possible to see the end of the caisson at 65m and indications that the caisson was in reasonable condition. There was an increased area of corrosion between 32 and 35m from the datum that corresponded with the splash-zone.

The A-map system was used to illustrate the corrosion along the caisson visually A-map can be carried out instantaneously using the software for all frequencies so providing valuable circumferential information to the operator. In this instant, the A-map showed that the worst area of corrosion is at the splash-zone however the level of corrosion was within acceptable limits.

For further information about this work or Teletest in general please contact Plant Integrity .

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TWI was awarded £1.2M by the European Commission to develop SubCTest

Whenever a high profile engineering failure and its deadly consequences hit the headlines the same tired and time-honoured questions are played out. How closely were safety considerations of design, construction and maintenance adhered to? Few aspects of engineering can possibly be of greater concern than reliability and structural integrity. So there is a fast growing interest in developments in non-destructive testing techniques and validation.

The European Commission has recognised this and allocated funding for a wide range of collaborative projects designed to unite industrial sponsors and research organisations across Europe.

From 2007 - 2009, the total project value of the UK TSB and European Commission FP7 sponsored NDT work was worth more than £68 million of which £17 million (approximately) is being carried out at TWI.

The grand total being spent on NDT research is even higher as the figures exclude work carried out under confidential sponsorship.

Below is a short overview of one of the oil and gas related projects TWI currently has running, part-funded by the European Commissions 'Framework 7'.

SubCTest involves the development of novel inspection NDT techniques and robots to be deployed by remote operating vehicles (ROVs) for the subsea inspection of offshore structures.

Project Budget: £1.2m
End Users: HSE (UK), PSA (Norway)
Project Website: www.subctest.com

TWI
Offshore Structure - ROV deployed inspection tool

Summary:
The project objective is to develop subsea NDT techniques to be applied by novel robots developed to be deployed to subsea structures by a Remote Operating Vehicle (ROV) for the examination of critical welds and lengths of subsea pipelines.

Although the ROV deployed applications are recognised established NDT techniques, their application to offshore subsea structures by ROVs has yet to be developed and constitutes a significant challenge. The use of ROV deployed NDT techniques is now preferred to those applied by divers because of personal safety and dive depth limitations.

In the North Sea there are about 150 fixed platforms and over 60% of them are older than 20 years and beyond their original design life. The need for this work to be undertaken comes from the concerns by national and European regulatory bodies as to the condition of such structures.

It is likely that further life extension of these platforms and an increase in technical duty (e.g. tie-ins to other oil and gas fields) will be required in the future.

For more information on collaborative projects in NDT, please contact TWI's NDT group .

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No signs of fatigue - TWI GSP week in November

TWI In contrast to the specimens tested within some of the projects TWI's sponsors showed no signs of fatigue during the week of GSP progress meetings which took place at TWI from the 16th to the 20th of November 2009.

TWI was very pleased to have had the opportunity to spend a very productive time in meetings, discussions and events with sponsors of five currently active Group Sponsored Projects. These are:

The first event was a seminar focussing on fatigue of deep water risers with the objective of identifying current and future trends in riser fatigue technology. Valuable contributions were made and critical topics for industry in this area identified. The second was a more informal workshop on developing an industry consensus on best practice for assessing fracture toughness in sour service pipes. Again, a lively discussion was held with a good exchange of views and experiences. Last but not least, sponsors were given an extended tour illustrating the laboratory work involved in the current and planned projects.

Due to the positive feedback received, TWI is planning to arrange a similar programme of GSP progress meetings which will take place week starting 17 May 2010. Sponsors are asked to note this date in their diaries; formal invitations will follow closer to the time.

For more information about the GSP weeks, please contact gsp@twi.co.uk

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TWI in Aberdeen

TWI Aberdeen is the latest location to offer training and examination services. This new venture has been established in order to serve the offshore industry. The facility is located at Unit 20 Spires Business Park, Mugiemoss Road about four miles south of Dyce Airport and three miles west of the railway station. With three classrooms and two practical areas, multiple on-site courses will be available as the programme develops.

From 2010 it will offer a full training programme including manual and encoded phased array ultrasonic testing, phased array data interpretation and, potentially, the new digital radiography course.

Additional courses such as visual weld inspection, plant inspection, painting and coating, general inspection of offshore facilities, and underwater inspection programmes will complement the NDT training, as well as bespoke training designed to meet specific client requirements.

To contact our Aberdeen office, go to www.twitraining.com

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Supercritical CO 2 /H2S in carbon capture and storage (CCS) and severe oil and gas service

Oil and gas environments are becoming increasingly severe in terms of high pressure and temperature, and along with the advent of carbon capture and storage (CCS) for the power generation sector, this has led to a need for better understanding and evaluation of materials issues related to the performance of welded materials in environments containing supercritical CO2 and H2S; and environments associated with oxy-fuel, pre-and post-combustion CCS technologies. These environments are broad, ranging from increased or changing high temperature corrosion in boilers and superheaters, through to amine-based chemical treatments. The increased demand in high temperature corrosion resistance may align with programme 0702-10.

Various technological challenges (e.g. appropriate metallic and non-metallic containment materials, measurement equipment) and industry requirements for working with supercritical fluids need to be better understood before unique equipment to perform tests can be successfully designed and commissioned. It is intended that such an assessment be carried out for the benefit of the Industrial Members, with a view to designing and building state-of-the-art test facilities. Subsequently, tests in supercritical CO2/H2S. This testing would include investigation of the criticality of CO2 purity on the corrosion performance of CO2 pipelines, for example.

Objectives

  • Investigate and review the testing of welded metallic materials in supercritical fluids at ambient and elevated temperatures.
  • Perform mechanical and corrosion testing of welded metallic materials in supercritical fluids at ambient and/or elevated temperatures.

Project outline:

Test techniques and equipment appropriate for the assessment of mechanical and corrosion properties of welded metallic materials in supercritical fluids will be investigated and reviewed.

Technical and economic benefits:

  • This work will benefit designers and fabricators of equipment for the transport of supercritical fluids.
  • This work will benefit manufacturers and users of components in high temperature-high pressure CO2/H2S-containing environments by the application of corrosion testing techniques for assessment and qualification testing of welded materials for use in oil and gas production service environments.

For further information, please contact the oil and gas team .

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Residual stress evaluation in clad components

Residual stresses, which in most cases come from manufacturing and fabrication processes such as welding, are a significant consideration in performing structural integrity assessments of engineering components and structures, including clad components (eg clad pipes) commonly used in the oil & gas industry. The presence of residual stresses in such components may substantially reduce flaw tolerances by augmenting crack driving forces as characterised by K, J or CTOD. Residual stresses are also detrimental in environmentally assisted cracking and in fatigue performance of metallic materials by accelerating the phase of crack formation and initiation. Hence to determine a realistic residual stress in a structure or component either by the experimental means or numerical simulation is vital in enabling a reliable and realistic assessment of the flaw tolerance for a structure or a component to be made.

A plethora of investigations has been made in determining residual stresses (including welding residual stresses) and its implications to structural integrity of normal structures and components, leading to a vast amount of data and conclusions in the literature. However, there is scarcity of studies on the determination of residual stresses in clad components and its implications in the consideration of structural integrity in such components. This situation is in strong contrast to the increasing use of clad components, particularly clad pipes used in various industrial sectors including oil and gas, nuclear and construction, because of its benefits in increasing life-time and economical savings. Therefore, it is clear that there is a great need to undertake a research programme to investigate residual stresses in clad components so that it becomes possible to perform a reliable engineering critical assessment (ECA) of clad structures and components.

This work would also have the potential to provide with essential information for updating the BS 7910 procedures relevant to the subject of cladding and RS.

Objectives:

  • Develop procedures of determining residual stresses (RS) in carbon and alloy steel components clad with corrosion resistant alloys (CRA).
  • Develop guidance on the effects of RS on defect-tolerance of such clad components.

Scope:

  • Modelling & experimental determination of residual stresses in internally clad components (mainly pipelines).
  • Effects of CRA characteristics (stainless steel/Inconel) and weld process/procedure on RS distribution.
  • Effects of RS on defect tolerance of backing material.

Project outline:

This proposal is aimed to develop and apply welding residual stress prediction and measurement methods in clad components, with the focus on carbon and alloy steel pipes clad with CRA.

Procedures of simulation of residual stresses in clad pipes will be developed for use in a design environment for fatigue and fracture assessments. The effects due to welding processes on mitigating welding residual stresses will be investigated. The effects of RS on defect tolerance of backing material will also be investigated. The project will make a comparative study of different residual stress measurement techniques to develop the state of the art and to validate the numerical models. Axial and hoop residual stresses will be measured and compared to the modelling results. The techniques would be surface and through thickness measurement using various measuring techniques, if necessary, such as centre hole drilling layer removal, deep hole drilling and neutron diffraction.

Technical and economic benefits

There are numerous engineering calculations conducted every year for the oil & gas industry in which the unknown residual stresses make the difference between go and no go, so the potential savings are significant (easily £500k pa).

For further information, please contact the oil and gas team.

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New destructive pressure test facility at TWI

TWI is extending its test capabilities with the development of a new pressure/structural test facility.

Given the industry need to validate, qualify and prove the integrity of pressure containing components and the dangers associated with pressure testing of those components, TWI has developed a state-of-the-art new test facility designed to test large scale components to destruction. The new dedicated facility is designed to not only allow pressure testing up to 1000bar but also to allow external loads to be applied in various configurations at the same time or separately. This combination of internal pressure and external loading is novel to TWI and when coupled with TWIs expert consultancy; make the service offered 'world leading'.

The partially buried, reinforced concrete, chamber is 8m long, 3m wide, 2.5m high. Test specimens can be fully furnished with monitoring sensors and specialist NDT equipment to monitor real time changes in strain and features within the component therefore allowing the exact behaviour of the component to be recorded, and analysed. Along with state of the art monitoring, full video recording facilities are also available (including high-speed video) to capture any events that occur during the tests. The types of specimen that could be tested include full scale pipes and small pressure vessels.

Post-test, TWI offers a full investigation service to analyse any failure. This could include post-test fractography and metallography and interpretation of the results. Analysis and monitoring of the tests allows data to be used later in analytical and numerical models to better predict behaviour of similar components and help to safely optimise designs to achieve their best structural performance.

TWI

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Sour conditions replicated in pipeline tests

An exciting new phase of work to determine how much sour environments influence fatigue crack growth and stress corrosion cracking, is about to start at TWI.

Pipelines and risers for oil production are increasingly required to carry sour production fluids. Depending on the precise chemistry of the environment, it may have a significant effect on fatigue and stress corrosion resistance of girth welds in the pipe, and these effects must be taken into account in the design, and in establishing flaw acceptance criteria.

Presently corrosion fatigue and stress corrosion tests must be carried out to measure the effect of the environment for each new field development, resulting in significant delays in the design and flaw assessment stages.

The proposed project is aimed at providing a more fundamental understanding of the influence of sour environments on fatigue crack growth and stress corrosion in order to reduce the dependence on project-specific testing.

A series of critical experiments has been designed to examine the effect of sour environments on fatigue crack growth rates (FCGRs) in pipeline steel and girth welds.

Concentrating on the near threshold regime, tests will be conducted in aqueous environments containing controlled levels of hydrogen sulphide, under increasing or decreasing ΔK conditions, and also with constant ΔK at a range of test frequencies.

The effect of the environment in building up diffusible hydrogen in the steel will be explored by testing samples in which the aqueous environment is in contact with the steel, leading to hydrogen charging conditions, but is excluded from the crack by means of a protective coating. This simulates the growth of a flaw which is not directly open to the sour environment, such as an embedded defect.

Hydrogen charging conditions, in the absence of the corrosive environment, will also be examined by testing in high pressure gaseous hydrogen using TWI's recently commissioned test facility.

Preliminary tests have shown that acceleration of FCGR and the variation of FCGR with frequency in high pressure hydrogen are similar to those in sour environments. Tests in gaseous hydrogen therefore provide a useful additional tool for exploring the fundamental mechanisms of crack growth acceleration.

Previous work conducted under TWI's Core Research Programme has examined factors affecting stress corrosion cracking (SCC) in pipeline steels in sour environments. To exploit fully the findings of this study further work will be conducted to establish and validate a generally applicable fracture assessment method for sour conditions.

The planned method will use a failure assessment diagram (FAD) approach, similar to that in the current fracture assessment procedures in BS 7910, tailored to suit sour service conditions.

Benefits, both economic and technical

  • An improved understanding of fundamental mechanisms of accelerated fatigue crack growth and stress corrosion cracking in sour environments
  • Improved flaw acceptance criteria for pipelines in sour service
  • Reduced dependence on project-specific environmental tests
  • Increased safety and reliability of pipelines, risers and hydrogen storage facilities

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Full scale fatigue testing in simulated sour operating environments

Launch date: Tuesday 3 November 2009
Project Leader: Colum Holtam

Summary: Steel catenary risers (SCRs) are commonly used within deepwater oil and gas developments, and fatigue performance is often a critical factor in overall design. Qualification testing is routinely used as a means of demonstrating adequate performance, and resonance fatigue testing of full scale girth welds has become standard industry practice.

However, these tests alone take no account of aggressive service environments such as sour production fluids. In these instances qualification testing is usually a two-stage process involving resonance fatigue testing to demonstrate the required performance in air, and strip fatigue testing (in air and in a sour environment) to determine a fatigue life reduction factor that is then applied to the base design curve.

This type of approach accounts for both size effects (ie the difference between strip and full scale testing) and environmental effects, and has been adopted on many projects. However, in some cases it may result in excessive conservatism. Qualification testing of full scale girth welds in a sour environment would eliminate much uncertainty and provide a more direct means of quantifying material performance.

For further information, please contact gsp@twi.co.uk .

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Materials issues surfacing and particulate engineering

WJS Materials Technical Group Meeting held at TWI Conference Centre on Tuesday 2 June 2009

The Welding and Joining Society hosted the anticipated Materials Technical Group Meeting on Tuesday 2 June 2009 at TWI Cambridge Conference Centre and captured both the historical and present issues on the subject of surfacing and particulate engineering, through discussions and presentations from Rolls Royce, Atomising Systems, Hoganas, Leicester University and TWI. The highly successful meeting was co-sponsored by the Particulate Engineering Committee of IOM3.

This one day event included a tour of TWI Surfacing facilities for a demonstration of thermal spraying as well as a visit to the TWI library for a brief introduction to the information services with a particular focus on the latest MI-21 data base (www.mi-21.com, a new service run by TWI in collaboration with NAMTEC and World Metal Index).

Delegates had a chance to network and establish contacts throughout the day. Those, particularly interested in professional development were encouraged to join WJS, The Welding Institute and IOM3, and informed of benefits of professional membership and the registration with the Engineering Council towards for example, CEng status.

For a full summary of this meeting and further information on future meetings of the WJS Materials Technical Group, please contact directly the secretary, Dr. Cem Selcuk at cem.selcuk@twi.co.uk

Left to right: Chairman, Peter Boothby (Macaw Engineering) and speakers: Jeffrey Allen (Rolls Royce), Roger Fairclough (TWI), John Dunkley (Atomising Systems), Paul Nurthen (Hoganas) and Dave Harvey (TWI) with Secretary, Cem Selcuk (TWI)

Full story


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Update on TWI's Joint Industry Projects on Thermally Sprayed Aluminium (TSA) for the oil & gas sector (upstream and downstream)

JIP16734 'TSA alloys for the prevention of corrosion and environmentally assisted cracking of welded CRAs'.
TWI continues its work demonstrating the benefits of TSA to the oil and gas sector with the commencement of a third joint industry project. Following previous projects that looked at the behaviour of TSA coatings at elevated temperature on carbon steel and 22Cr duplex stainless steel, this new project focuses on demonstrating their ability to mitigate localised corrosion (pitting, crevice corrosion) and environmentally assisted cracking (chloride SCC, hydrogen embrittlement) in welded 25Cr superduplex stainless steels. One specific objective of the project is to identify a TSA alloy composition that polarises to a level that mitigates localised corrosion mechanisms without the risk of hydrogen charging.

For further information please contact oilandgas@twi.co.uk

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