14th International Conference on Pressure Vessel Technology

A joint workshop by UK Forum of Engineering Structural Integrity (FESI) and China Structural Integrity Consortium (CSIC) will be opened just before the formal opening of the 14th International Conference on Pressure Vessel Technology (ICPVT-14) on September 21–22, 2015.

The purpose of the workshop is to address the role of inspection of components and structures and how the outputs are used to assess the integrity of plant. During the workshop, a series of courses on structural integrity principle, inspection and assessment methodologies will be delivered by well-known experts with a solid background on structural integrity practices. The full payment for the two-day training, including training documents, registration and lunch, is 2200 RMB.

Workshop Report

Introduction

The workshop was held by FESI (UK Forum for Engineering Structural Integrity) in partnership with CSIC (Chinese Structural Integrity Consortium). FESI was represented by Geoff Booth, Henryk Pisarski and Will Daniels; CSIC was represented by Shandong Tu (who was responsible for arrangements in Shanghai) and Fuzhen Xuan.

The two day workshop comprised eight live presentations and six pre-prepared video presentations.

Discussion

The meeting room, registration, refreshments, audio-visual facilities, etc. used for the workshop were entirely suitable.

Some 70 delegates attended. Of these approximately 30 (mostly Prof Tu’s ex-students) were from local industry. All presentations (apart from Prof Xuan’s) were in English. An engineering professor was available to provide translation but this was rarely used. Although the level of English of the attendees was good, it was apparent that even with a slow presentation delivery some of the attendees had difficulty following the technical argument.

There were few discussion points after each presentation, but there was a good round table discussion at the end of each day and the questions asked showed technical awareness corresponding to at least degree level. It was hard to establish whether all the attendees had this level of capability.

Apart from a sound problem with one video (resolved by changing pc used to run the video), the video presentations were clear. They did, however, suffer from a lack of immediacy and it was possible that some attendees had become disengaged by the end of the longer ones. No questions arose after any video presentation.

After the workshop, Prof Tu said he was pleased the outcome and would be very interested in holding another. One possible topic of interest to him was Capabilities of advanced NDT techniques but he would welcome other suggestions.

Possible areas of improvement to be considered for future events:

• Ensure schedule avoids consecutive video presentations
• Limit length of video presentations to 20-25 mins and ensure that they do not exceed 40% or so of total presentation time
• Send video presentations in advance—restrictions on website access meant that they could not be downloaded locally.
• Recognise that some video presentations may become dated
• Add bibliography of essential references and speakers’ CVs
• Consider including worked examples in live presentations
• Make a flipchart available in meeting room

Conclusions

The event successfully met the FESI objectives of delivering an appropriate and well-received workshop to a Chinese audience and starting a library of video presentations for possible use at other events. The financial outcome is not yet known.

Geoff Booth
September 28, 2015