- In In recent years, Petroleum Industries, Power generation industries and various other plants throughout the world are facing a common issue- aging of their equipment. Questions bearing in user’s minds are what is the equipment’s condition and whether it can be continuously operated and if yes, then how long? The answer is significant not only for safety concerns but cost reduction and reduction of downtime also. Due to continuous use under high temperature, pressure and critical environmental conditions, material properties are degraded. Damage due to Creep, Fatigue and Corrosion are irreversible and essential to predict remaining life.
- All components operating at high temperature,
which increase chances of failure via high
temperature corrosion. Existing and change in
environmental condition have huge impact on
corrosion rate of these components. Residual stress
generated during manufacturing and operation is
usually observed in these components. Remaining
life assessment offers a possible tool to estimate the
useful remaining lifetime and avoid premature
scrapping of the parts.
- Remaining life assessment is carried out in various phases. Remaining life assessment is initiated by understanding present condition / information, history of equipment operation including breakdown history and design data of every component. Second phase includes selection of logical and cost effective testing and assessment methods to be used.
- This phase includes extensive monitoring of actual plant, measurements of operating temperature, stress calculations, inspection using Destructive and Non-destructive testing. Various failure mechanisms that are taken in consideration include: Fatigue, Corrosion/Corrosion fatigue, Erosion, Embrittlement and Creep.
- In final stage, in depth inspection and scientific approach is used to understand data collected in previous stages. Depending on the data obtained, the analysis is completed for final results.
- Hertz Testing and Training Centre is IBR approved RLA organization. We have in-house material testing facilities for mechanical, chemical and metallurgical testing. Microstructure evaluation using in situ metallography and in-Situ hardness testing machine used for onsite testing. We have successfully executed services for RLA for Boilers, Chemical Reactors, Pipelines, Tanks and Vessels.
