Role of Structural Integrity in Plant Operation

Structural integrity is the ability of a structure or a component to withstand a designed service load, resisting structural failure due to a variety of loading and/or ageing mechanisms. Structural integrity is a concept often used in engineering, to produce items that will not only function adequately for their designed purposes, but also to function for a desired service life, whether that be as defined at the design stage or a requirement/desire to operate beyond that lifetime. Structural integrity brings together several technical disciplines (eg, stress analysis, materials science, chemistry, and non destructive examination). Specialists, early career engineers or scientists, and students working in one or more technical area, will benefit by widening their understanding of the other areas and obtaining a better appreciation of the linkage between the different areas within the whole context of structural integrity. People who have a role associated with maintaining engineering plant and components, either directly responsible for operation or in a support function, could also benefit by gaining a better appreciation of structural integrity and its role in plant operation and life extension.

This training course will concentrate on the concepts of structural integrity applied to engineering plant in terms of operation and life extension and will include failure mechanisms, use of standards, detection, assessment, and a case study.

The training course will be presented by John Sharples, Bernard McGrath, and Neil Shallcross of Amec Foster Wheeler who have extensive experience in the development and application of structural integrity procedures. Additional material will come from Harry Bainbridge (formerly HSE/ONR, now retired). All course material will be provided.

Programme

09:00, Introduction

09:15, Failure Mechanisms

10:15, Break

10:30, Design Codes, Stress Analysis, Materials, and Quality Control
11:30, Discussion

12:00, Lunch

13:00, Manufacturing Inspection and Inspection Strategy

14:00, Break

14:15, Structural Integrity Assessment
15:15, Case Study and Bringing Together the Various Strands for Plant Operation and Life Extension Justification
14:15, Final Discussion

16:30, Close