Entries by Structural Integrity

News & Views, Volume 51 | Combustion Turbine Compressor Hygiene

COMPONENT LONGEVITY By:  John Molloy Introduction An industrial combustion turbine can ingest over 1000lbs of air per hour of operation.  Entrained within the air is a spectrum of mineral, salt, moisture, and VOC, and other compounds that are present in the local atmosphere.  Locally high concentrations of potentially corrosive species may also be present due […]

High Temperature Ultrasonic Thickness Monitoring

Jason Van Velsor, Robert Chambers The ability to continuously monitor component thickness at high temperatures has many benefits in the power generation industry, as well as many other industries. Most significantly, it enables condition-based inspection and maintenance, as opposed to schedule-based, which assists plant management optimizing operations and maintenance budgets and streamlining outage schedules. Furthermore, […]

Pipeline Integrity Activity and Plans for 2022

Authors: Scott Riccardella and Andy Jensen 2021 marked another successful year for the Structural Integrity (SI) Oil & Gas team with several exciting pipeline integrity projects, industry presentations, training events and research programs.  Some of the key highlights include: Continued regulatory consulting support of new pipeline safety regulation (known as Mega-Rule 1 or RIN 1) […]

Alumni Achievement Award

Structural Integrity’s Own Honored Awarded to an alumnus/a for exceptional accomplishment and leadership in the nominee’s professional or vocational field, which brings distinction to themselves and honor to the university. The contribution(s) need not be publicly renowned but should represent important creative effort or accomplishment with significant impact and value. Barry Gordon is one of […]

News & Views, Volume 50 | Material Verification for Oil and Gas Clients

PIPELINE INTEGRITY SOLUTIONS By:  Scott Riccardella and Roger Royer On October 1, 2019, the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) published amendments to 49 CFR Parts 191 and 192 in the Federal Register, issuing Part 1 of the Gas Transmission Mega-Rule or “Mega-Rule 1”.  In advance of Mega-Rule 1, SI developed field protocol and […]

News & Views, Volume 50 | SI FatiguePRO for Hydrogen Fueling Station Assets

VESSEL LIFE CYCLE MANAGEMENT By:  Erick Ritter and Daniel Peters Initial introduction of many of the hydrogen fueling stations to support this rapidly growing demand were installed around 2010. There were many designs of cylinders developed and installed at that time, many with known limitations on the life of the equipment due to the high pressures […]

News & Views, Volume 50 | Reactor Vessel Integrity

FRACTURE TOUGHNESS CRITERIA By:  Tim Griesbach and Dan Denis The integrity of the nuclear reactor pressure vessel is critical to plant safety.  A failure of the vessel is beyond the design basis.  Therefore, the design requirements for vessels have significant margins to prevent brittle or ductile failure under all anticipated operating conditions.  The early vessels […]

News & Views, Volume 50 | TRU Compliance Equipment Testing Project

EQUIPMENT TESTING AND CERTIFICATION TO ASSESS RISK By:  Katie Braman Using a risk-based approach derived from various seismic standards from the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, TRU and BC Hydro will develop a synthetic test motion in three axes, mount the equipment on a triaxial shake table at TRU’s testing partner’s facility, and test […]

News & Views, Volume 50 | Porting SI’s ANACAP Concrete Model into LS-DYNA

ADVANCED STRUCTURAL ANALYSIS By: Livia Mello and Shari Day One of Structural Integrity Associates’ (SI) strengths is combining state-of-the-art software with material science expertise to solve difficult structural and mechanical problems. A notable example in recent years is the Aircraft Impact Analysis (AIA) performed by SI for NuScale Power, using the ANACAP concrete material model. […]

News & Views, Volume 50 | Oil and Gas Pipeline Intel

PRCI June Technical Committee Meetings Structural Integrity Associates (SI) recently attended the PRCI June 2021 Technical Committee (TC) Meetings. SI is also planning to support the upcoming PRCI NDE workshop scheduled for October 2021 as well as future committee meetings. SI will continue to engage and support industry with PRCI.  As a researcher for PRCI, […]