Abstract
Assessing corrosion risks and developing appropriate inspection and mitigation measures forms a vital part of Asset Integrity Management (AIM) for operating any ageing asset. However, for many systems detailed information is often scarce and/or unreliable, which prevents or limits the application of many Risk Based Inspection (RBI) databases / software systems, which are “data hungry”. In order to overcome this limitation, and to allow corrosion risk assessment of both existing and aging facilities, an alternative in-house expert system methodology has been developed.
The system is designed to accept a range of data inputs including “engineering judgment”, summary of inspection data, monitoring data, predicted corrosion rates, etc as may be available; thereby overcoming problems with sparse / non-existent data, whilst still providing a logical, transparent and fully auditable system for later review, update and modification as may be necessary.
The system can be used to drive the development of corrosion monitoring, fluid sampling and inspection plans for process plant. The use of the combined corrosion risk assessment methodology and automated Inspection Plan development, avoids the need for labor intensive inspection driven integrity management systems where data or resources are not available.
The overall system is described together with examples of application to both ageing and new facilities.
