Fitness for service Assessment
When you encounter a flaws or damages in your inspections or when the equipment has aged you would get to the questions, Should the equipment be replaced? Can it allowed to remain in operation? In order to make an informed decision, Fitness for service approach is the way to go.
In every plant degradation or damage occurs eventually. When this happens decision should be made whether to repair, replace or continue its operation. When NDE personnel discover a flaw these questions arise:
Should the flaw be repaired before placing the component back into service?
Can the repair be delayed until a future planned outage?
What Code or Standard should be used to evaluate the component?
For pressurized components in power plants, chemical plants, or petrochemical plants the National Board Inspection Code is often the governing standard. This standard provides repair guidelines and allows for Fitness-for-Service approaches using ASME FFS-1/API 579.
The initial FFS Level 1 evaluation is intended for use at the plant inspection level. An increasing level of complexity is required for the analysis of defects or conditions that do not pass the previous level. At the Level 2 evaluation, standard design calculations are made to take credit for any extra fabricated thickness, which can in turn be used as additional corrosion allowance. A Level 3 analysis is intended to be used by an engineering specialist in the appropriate field. At this level complex calculations are often employed, including finite element analysis and fracture mechanics.
Pidemco offers Fitness for services based on ASME FFS-1/API 579 code for static equipment. Our FFS services is to help our clients make informed decisions about their static equipment status which leads to great savings in costs while assuring them of their plant safety.