The 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. Structural integrity brings together several technical disciplines (eg. stress analysis, materials science, chemistry and non destructive examination (NDE)). Specialists, early career engineers/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.

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 (HSE/ONR retired). All course material will be provided.