LATEST ADVANCES IN RISK BASED INSPECTION (RBI) –

INSIGHTS, BEST PRACTICES & CASE STUDIES

Session 2

RBI Quality Review & Optimisation Strategies

Peter Nutty
Asset Integrity Management
Subject Matter Expert
Technut Limited

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 Overview
• Reviewing and reassessing your current RBI program to examine opportunities to extend
inspection intervals

• Devising strategies to optimize your RBI program and reducing the scope of work needed
during turnarounds

• How to prolong inspection intervals without compromising on safety and integrity?

• Making informed business decisions on determining inspection intervals

• Group discussions

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Devising strategies to optimize your RBI program and reducing
the scope of work needed during turnarounds
• The goal of the strategy is to manage ageing assets and set clear performance standards

• Plan the inspection programs based on effects of ageing

• Implement schemes for data gathering and recording – inspection/ condition monitoring

• Assess performance of the assets versus the required performance standards

• Set out clear and remediation and corrective action, manage risk

• Implement verification using an independent competent person

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 Devising strategies to optimize your RBI program and reducing
the scope of work needed during turnarounds
• Introduce advanced monitoring & inspection services that are structured to focus on managed
processes that better contribute to process safety and asset integrity of O&G facilities.
• More details in Section 4
• Supported by continuously developing, verifying and introducing novel, state-of-the-art inspection
tools and innovative techniques not previously considered in a managed RBI program.
• Ability to introduce cheaper technology-led solutions to existing and underlying problems; they
understand and apply fitness for purpose and life extension principles to the business
• Increasing cost-effective inspection periods using state-of-the-art technology
• Quality and accuracy of the inspection data will help better define RBI outputs, thus allowing risk to
be better quantified and managed when considering go/no-go decisions on equipment availability
and production uptime.
• Seek out other lesser-known problems and provide solutions in order to further increase process
safety within the facility.

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 Devising strategies to optimize your RBI program and reducing
the scope of work needed during turnarounds

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 Devising strategies to optimize your RBI program and reducing
the scope of work needed during turnarounds

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Application of Advanced Inspection Techniques and Effects
on Equipment Availability & Inspection Turnarounds

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 Application of Advanced Inspection Techniques and Effects
on Equipment Availability & Inspection Turnarounds

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 How to prolong inspection intervals without
compromising on safety and integrity?

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 How to prolong inspection intervals without
compromising on safety and integrity?
• Breakdown • Unscheduled interventions
• Fix when broke • Process and service disruptions
• Expensive • High Maintenance costs

• Preventative • Regular interventions

• Scheduled inspection /replacement • Equipment inspections
• Less suitable for permanently • Replacement before failure
installed subsea equipment

• Predictive • Predicted best time for intervention

• Monitor equipment and process • Detect and correct root cause of failure
conditions
• Deliver inherent plant reliability
• Predict and prevent

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 How to prolong inspection intervals without
compromising on safety and integrity?
• When will an asset fail? (MTTF)
• How soon before we need to replace / repair / retire? (MTTR)
• How often should we inspect and/or test?

• Important to understand
• How important items degrade and fail
• How fast degradation mechanisms leads to failure
• How much degradation can be tolerated before intervention

• Inspection & Testing

• Actual state/condition of equipment to make informative decisions
• Changes of state over time

• Current industry practice

• Mainly to detect current state / condition
• Not making best use of inspection / monitoring data to predict end of life

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 How to prolong inspection intervals without
compromising on safety and integrity?
• Ensuring safety and integrity is the process of making judgements about the adequacy of
performance and taking decisions about the nature and timing of the actions necessary to remedy
deficiencies.
• Organisations need to have feedback to see if their systems (in our case our RBI system) is working
as designed.
• The main sources of information come from measuring activities related to the RBI activities and
from audits of the Risk Control Systems and workplace precautions. Other internal and external
influences may include, for example, new legislation, changes in current good practice, process
changes or organisational changes/re-structuring.
• Any of these changes can result in redesign or amendment of any parts of the RBI management
systems involved or a change in overall direction or objectives.
• Suitable performance standards should be established to identify the responsibilities, timing and
systems involved.

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 Periodicity limits and Examinations scheduling

• There are a number of alternative approaches to determining the interval between examinations.
• One option is to use a prescriptive approach. This is based on guidance, produced for particular
types of equipment, which gives recommendations for examination intervals.
• SAFed guidelines PSG0114 and EEMUA 159 Appendix B provide examples of such an approach.
• An alternative is to calculate the next examination interval as a proportion of remaining life, based
on measured or predicted degradation rates. This is considered an evidence based approach. It is
important that there is a factor of safety in this method, and the concept of half remaining life is
commonly used.
• Examples of an evidence based approach can be seen in EEMUA 159 Section 5, and API 510.
• EEMUA 159 Section 17 takes the concepts of Risk Based Inspection (RBI) and Reliability Centred
Maintenance (RCM) as the building blocks for Probabilistic Preventive Maintenance (PPM).

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 Periodicity limits and Examinations scheduling

VIA RISK MANAGEMENT

• Managing risk by reducing uncertainty through inspection

• Identifying risk management opportunities from RBI results

• Establishing an Inspection Strategy based on Risk Assessment

• Managing risk with Inspection Activities

• Frequency of Inspection
• Coverage
• Tools and Techniques
• Procedures and Practices
• Internal, On-stream, or External Inspection

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 How to prolong inspection intervals without
compromising on safety and integrity?
• Review groups – a stronger result can be achieved from a formal sessions with individuals and
groups involved in the process. The dynamics of a group session can uncover ‘deeper’ possibilities
for improvement.
• At what point do you convene the group? Depends on the situation.
• Can deal with a problem from the identification of a problem or can deal with a list of
recommendations or individual recommendations.
• Decisions will need to be taken about converting the improvement opportunity into an action, who
will be responsible for implementation and timescales etc.
• The team should also consider whether the corrective action addresses the fundamental problem
and for example whether the corrective action is compatible with other corrective actions
previously implemented.

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 How to prolong inspection intervals without
compromising on safety and integrity?
• Section 6 of API 510 inspection code covers the frequency and extent of inspection, and how RBI
can be used to establish appropriate inspection intervals.
• RBI may allow previously established inspection limits to be extended, and when justified to
extend the inspection interval to beyond ten years
• The RBI assessment shall be reviewed and approved at intervals of up to 10 years.
• The document states that if an RBI assessment is used to extend internal inspection intervals,
then the RBI should include a review of the inspection history. It does not impose an upper limit
on the inspection period

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 How to prolong inspection intervals without
compromising on safety and integrity?
EXAMPLE
• Vessels storing liquefied natural gas (LNG), liquid nitrogen and liquid oxygen (cryogenic service)
typically operate for twenty to thirty years without an internal inspection
• Since there are no known credible in-service degradation mechanisms, warming up and emptying
the vessels to carry out an internal inspection would result in potentially damaging the materials
through stress loading.
• On the other hand, risks associated with storage vessels operating at ambient temperature present
a higher hazard.
• In other words. factors that contribute to making a tank or vessel available for inspection may have
significant implications for any potential damage mechanisms and consequences of failure,
separate from the product itself.

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 How to prolong inspection intervals without
compromising on safety and integrity?
When an extended internal inspection interval has been justified there are actions which can also be taken to
safeguard against any potential disadvantages of not examining the inside of vessels and detecting unanticipated
conditions outside the assumptions made.

• Non-Intrusive Inspection

• Process & Product Monitoring

• External inspection of the asset including bolts, seals and safety components are tightened, calibrated
and overhauled as necessary during the extended inspection interval.

• When a leak-before-failure argument is used, the assessment should consider further safeguards, which
be implemented to provide measures that will mitigate the worst-case hazard scenario arising from a
failure. For example, local leak detection instrumentation, ensuring management of functional safety in
general, secondary containment to contain any leakage.

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 How to prolong inspection intervals without
compromising on safety and integrity?
• Feeding information on success and areas for improvement back into the system is an essential
element in maintaining and improving performance and maintaining business continuity.
• Successful organisations emphasise positive reinforcement and concentrate on encouraging
progress on those performance indicators which demonstrate improvements in risk control.
• The most important aspect is continuous review since it contributes to making informed decisions.
The outcome of the review becomes what you plan to do next with the system under review – for
example, the risks associated when determining inspection intervals.
• You should also see a ‘higher level review’ or ‘management review’ as previously discussed. This is
a higher level activity that should be undertaken by (ideally) senior management that reviews the
overall policy and strategy (for the entire strategy including the RBI system). The results of
monitoring performance and auditing should be used as the basis for making and implementing
decisions about improving performance
• The safety management system should describe the review mechanisms

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 How to prolong inspection intervals without
compromising on safety and integrity?
• The main driver for justifying extended internal examination intervals is to reduce the requirement
for human access inside high hazard pressure equipment (confined space entry). There are several
strategies to do this.

• The first is simply to extend the interval between shutdowns for internal inspection (for
example from two up to five years, which is allowable).
• An alternative might be to use non-invasive inspection in place of internal examination (subject
to periodic review), in which case the internal inspection interval could effectively be indefinite
but unlikely.
• Non-invasive techniques include internal visual examination via a high resolution video camera
mounted on a robotic crawler or endoscope inside the vessel in place of inspection personnel.
• The actual inspection interval is usually a compromise of alternating non-invasive and invasive
techniques

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 How to prolong inspection intervals without
compromising on safety and integrity?
(Precautions)
• Along with complacency, and poor data quality, the downfall of any RBI program is inconsistency.
Varying degree of personnel competency can give very different results during the RBI assessments
due to different levels of experience and know-how throughout the process.
• Also, with insufficient independence from their company's management or corporate financial
pressures the results of an RBI assessment may be swayed towards particular findings.
• In a similar way, an RBI may fail to assess all the potential damage mechanisms or risk factors if the
RBI team assess only what they expects to find, and has insufficient imagination or thoroughness to
consider less likely, but potentially dangerous, scenarios.
• When third party service providers carry out RBI assessments for their clients, these do not have as
much weight since the service provider has very little information and/or operating experience
essential to input into the assessment. Information on previous operation or inspection history may
not have been made available. An independent consultant to chair to oversee the RBI process is
essential

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Anomaly and risk management

• Requires an integral approach

• RBI assessments need to provide for
future anomaly and risk management
• Integrity assessments should be
independent of the operation and all
other restraints
• Ongoing risk management must be truly
to ALARP and involves others, including
procurement
• Good communication is essential

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 Fitness for Service 579-1/ ASME FFS-1

• In the FFS assessments of API 579, there

are basically 3 different types of
assessment criteria:
• Remaining Strength Factor (RSF)
approach
• Failure Assessment Diagram (FAD)
approach
• Other miscellaneous approaches

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 Fitness for Service 579-1/ ASME FFS-1)

• API 579 - Damage Mechanisms

1. Brittle fracture
2. General metal loss
3. Local metal loss
4. Pitting
5. Hydrogen blisters, HIC, SOHIC
6. Weld misalignment, shell distortion
7. Crack-like flaws
8. Creep
9. Fire damage
10. Dents and gouges
11. Laminations
12. Fatigue

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 Fitness for Service 579-1/ ASME FFS-1

• In practice, the three most common FFS questions posed by plant engineers are:

• Is it safe to continue operation?

• How long can I continue operation?

• Can I keep running until the next scheduled shutdown in X months or years?

• The API 579 standard provides a three-level assessment approach since it’s not always necessary to
perform detailed and complex calculations.

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 Fitness for Service 579-1/ ASME FFS-1

• Level 1

• Simplest, quickest, and cheapest assessment level

• Highly prescriptive

• Typically requires use of charts or graphs, or simple calculations

• Intended to be performed by inspection or plant engineering personnel

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 Fitness for Service 579-1/ ASME FFS-1

• Level 2

• More complicated, time consuming, and expensive than Level 1

• Highly prescriptive

• Typically requires solving algebraic equations; sometime a significant number of equations

• Intended to be performed by plant engineering personnel or engineering specialists

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 Fitness for Service 579-1/ ASME FFS-1

• Level 3

• Most complex assessment

• Requires significant judgement and technical knowledge on the part of the engineer performing
the assessment

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 Fitness for Service 579-1/ ASME FFS-1

• For GENERAL METAL LOSS – Parts 4 – 6

• Level 1

• This approach considers averages from either point readings or profile readings (i.e.
corrosion mapping).

• Generally, to pass the assessment, the average thickness at the time of inspection (tavg)
must be greater than or equal to the minimum required design thickness (tmin).

• This is how it would be expressed as a formula: tavg ≥ tmin (Design)

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 Fitness for Service 579-1/ ASME FFS-1

• Level 2

• Also uses the same thickness averaging approach as Level 1, but it includes a reduction factor
called a Remaining Strength Factor (RSF) which takes in to account the yield and tensile strength of
the material.

• Level 2 also allows either point or profile readings.

• Generally, to pass the assessment requires: tavg ≥ RSF·tmin (Design)

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 Fitness for Service 579-1/ ASME FFS-1

• Level 3

• Part 2 describes options for detailed stress analysis that may involve advanced numerical methods,
such as Finite Element Analysis (FEA).

• Detailed measurements of the corrosion profile, tensile testing, and measurement of loads may be
included in a Level 3 assessment.

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 Fitness for Service (API 579)

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 Fitness for Service (API 579)

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 Fitness for Service (API 579)

The challenge for us….

• How do we accurately measure the defects?

• What are the most effective inspection /
gauging tools?
• Can we get access to the defect?
• How do we report it…. Visualisation?
• Who is competent to assess the data
• What is our mitigation / corrective action
plan?
• Just because the defect fails a FFS doesn’t
mean we have to stop the process – there are
other options…. repair / replace / re-rate…

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 Fitness for Service (API 579)
(Example of pipeline fail/pass criteria)

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 Fitness for Service (API 579)
(Example of pipeline repair criteria)

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 Making informed business decisions on
determining inspection intervals
(The connection with AIM)

Source: UKOPA
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 How to prolong inspection intervals without
compromising on safety and integrity?
• Summary

• RBI assessment should be reviewed to ensure there are sufficient safeguards to check that it
actually conforms to best practice. Best practice guidance is available, and quality can be
improved if measures are in place to ensure it is followed, and/or to audit the RBI process.
• As previously mentioned, it is important to ensure consistent data quality and the process is fit
for purpose through regular review of the RBI assessment at set frequencies (team effort).
• For some high hazard situations, where the scale and consequences of failure are very high,
moving to a completely non-invasive inspection scheme is unlikely ever to be tenable and
there may be grounds for continuing to carry out some internal examination, even though no
active degradation mechanisms are identified.
• Fitness for service is a very powerful tool / process to maintain integrity through assessing,
understanding and managing risk of defective assets.

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