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Technology Newsletter
August - 2016
Who We are?
AMCO is an Industry Leader in Root Cause Failure Analysis/Investigations, Structure Integrity Analysis,Tube Condition Assessment/Monitoring, Online Tube Failure Analysis, Maintenance Advisory, PlantRemaining Life Assessment, Plant Life Extension Consultancy, Fitness-for-Service including level III,Defect/Crack assessment, Risk Based Inspection, Risk Based Maintenance, Support and Guidance in PlantOperation and Maintenance, Advice in Weld Repairs, Support with Materials, Inspection and Monitoring,Corrosion and Oxidation issues, Reliability Engineering, Reliability Centered Maintenance (RCM), Vibrationand Condition Monitoring, Single Point of Failure (SPOF), Mechanical Testing, IGC Testing, ContaminationAnalysis, Corrosion Looping, Boiler Inspection, Turbine Component Assessment, Probabilistic LifeAssessment, Outage Services, Metallography, Plant Benchmarking, Cost Analysis, Trouble Shooting and ahost of other such topics.
For more details, please click here…..
Your Engineering Consulting Partner
Welcome to AMCO Newsletter!
As a power or processing facility ages the need to assess its suitability for continued operation, alongwith the economics of repair , and the calculation of failure risk becomes of paramount importance.Owners, operators, maintenance parties, insurers are well aware that the industry is a mine field oftechnologies, codes & methodologies with a fair spattering of ‘this is how we’ve always done it’thrown in for good measure. The question is how does one disseminate the wheat from chaff in such acritical decision making process that could spell the difference between for example meeting thepower purchase agreement or facing long term shut down with the associated crippling penalties (notto the mention the crippling headaches!).
These issues are also a main concern of AMCO, and through our years of providing world classconsultancy and industry training combined with various collaborative industry projects in areas suchas Cyclic study of HRSG’s and conventional power plant, crack assessment, weld repair technologies,risk based maintenance and material reviews- we are aiming to cut through the haze and provideindustry with straight forward, unbiased and proactive projects & services.
That said we will like to draw your attention to section 1 of this newsletter where our multi-clientprojects are detailed and still available to benefit from. We hope that you take the time to criticallyassess their benefits to your plant, manufacturing or fabrication practices, , as we take great prideknowing our efforts are adopted by the very industries that drive our innovation and passion forcontinuous improvement and knowledge development.
Kind regards,
AMCO Team.
Your Engineering Consulting Partner
Innovative and provide quality of services to our clients.
AMCO has state of the art metallurgical laboratory for conducting life assessment, investigating damagemechanisms and conducting failure analysis . All the technical equipments are latest in their features which is a keycomponent in AMCO’s recent success rate.
Whether its fitness for service (FFS) studies , design analysis or defect assessment, the combined effect ofcompetent personals and technical facilities make it inevitable for clients to chose anyone else except AMCO in thecore services it has been providing in the field.
During the recent visit of Mr. Mehmood Alam and Mr. Mohammad Shaaban from SADARA chemical company,have appreciated the zeal with which AMCO is committed to its Values.
In recent past week, had another lab visit and audit from SIPCHEM ,Consisting a team member Mr. Omar Al-Sadoon and Mr. ShameerHassan to assess to AMCO facilities and work parameters. Their visitWent very successful and they appreciated AMCO Team and itsLaboratory based in Al-Khober Saudi Arabia.
AMCO always aim for full satisfaction of the client with itsImproved technical capabilities and positive attitude towardsevery challenge.
The prime quality objective of AMCO is to achieve total CustomerSatisfaction through confidence in all Metallurgical Services provided to our client.
AMCO Lab is fully equipped with advanced softwares which can be utilized for advanced studies both at site as wellas in the Lab.
Our Metallography software can give instant results at client site. This is facilitated to measure Grain Size, PhaseAnalysis, Nodularity Analysis, Liner measurement, Degradation etc. at project site connected with a camera andlaptop system.
We strive to provide quality in our services and in order to achieve it we focus on increasing our scope byenlarging our facility network and equipment quality. The pictorial representation will provide an insight intoAMCO capabilities. We do have our Laboratory based in Al-Khober.
On-site quality assurance conducted by the Services Team
In another case a client has requested AMCO to take carry out (during May 2016) on-site assessment of 06Turbines at Rabigh Power Plant.
Since the start of 2016, AMCO has carried outmetallographic replication and on-site hardnesstesting of a P91 weld joining a 1CrMoV highpressure steam turbine valve body to a P91reducer pipe for a major power generationcompany in Middle East. Post-weld heat treatment(PWHT) had been carried out on the weld and themicrostructural condition and hardness level of theweld required assessment as part of the weldquality assurance.
In this assessment the critical factors to considerwere that the microstructures were consistentwith correct post heat treated conditions, and thathardness values backed up the microstructuralfindings by lying within the acceptable range.These ‘simple’ checks are critical as any erroneousprocessing prior to service can significantly reducethe materials resistance to operating stress &temperature.
P91 material following PWHT should consist of atempered martensitic microstructure, and itshardness should fall within a well recognized bandwith the1CrMoV requiring tempered bainitemicrostructure and hardness values within theindustry recognized bands. Based on the on-sitefindings AMCO were able to confirm whether thecomponent was suitable for operation.
Dedicated and well professional team.
Risk Based Boiler Tube Failure (BTF) Prevention Program
Background: Boiler Tube Failures
Tube failures have resulted in increasing number of leaks due to thermal fatigue, overheating,Corrosion / erosion and original weld defects.
This trend is expected to continue which is mainly attributed to the ageing of plants. The numbers of failures is expected to rise. Increases number of forced outage hence loss of production. Most of the boiler tube failures are repeat failures. Return to service traditionally been considered to be more important than determining the root
cause of individual tube failures and then taking effective action to avoid or minimize the risk ofrepeat failures.
Solution: AMCO’s BTF Project
The project will provide practical guidelines for boiler tube failure prevention Examples of case studies of boiler tube failures from power, petrochemical or chemical plants AMCO’s extensive database will be used for materials design and performance data, costs of failures
and plant performance, along with data obtained from plant surveys. Risk will be analyzed using practical BTF prevention with risk based integrated approach. Each sponsor will receive practical guidelines to BTF prevention; tube damage mechanisms,
costs/failure mechanisms data statistics associated with tube failures, andsolutions/recommendations to prevent tube failures.
Guidelines will cover material selection and design issues, types of damage and failure mechanismsand the factors that influence them, e.g. operating conditions (start-up/shut-down parameters,temperatures, pressures, water chemistry, etc.), and methods for inspection and monitoring.
For details on how to join or for further information contact AMCO: [email protected]
Electrical Discharge Sampling Equipment (EDSE)
AMCO has added to its arsenal a new and most modern equipment for plant lifeassessment. This portable EDSE can easily and much more quickly take out(compared with the presently available cutters) boat samples from in-situcomponents, with the size of the boat sample capable of adjustment to allow bothmetallurgical analysis & miniature rupture testing.
In brief, we offer a one-stop shop for plant integrity and life assessment of ageing plant
Plant Life Assessment / Extension
AMCO has just won some major contracts in theMiddle East & ASIA for their Desalination andPetrochemical plant boiler life assessment. We carryout complete plant life assessment for power,petrochemical, refining, fertilizer and other such plantsusing Level 1, Level 2, Level 3 type approach. We canuse our sister company NDT teams using sophisticatedmethods such as advanced ultrasonic techniques,boroscopy etc.We carry out stress analysis, FE analysis, Fitness-for-Service, and both deterministic (conservative) or morerealistic probabilistic life assessment of more criticalcomponents. We can advise on suitable plantmonitoring techniques, plant repair methodologies andcomponent replacement strategy. We have providedsuch services to power and petrochemical plant inSaudi Arabia, Malaysia, Philippine, Pakistan, Bahrain,Qatar and Kuwait.
Defect Assessment Leads to Key Recommendations
AMCO recently carried out crack assessment on adefect discovered in a pigtails of the reformer of apetrochemicals plant in Saudi Arabia. The purpose ofthe analysis included criticality checking of the cracksize, the crack propagation to determine the rate ofcrack growth under the typical plant operatingconditions and the structural integrity and remaininglife of the weld.
Simulating crack growth under the condition of fatigue,creep and creep-fatigue interaction showed that thecrack growth rate was relatively low compared to theinitial crack size. This would imply that the componentwould have low risk of failure under the conditionsconsidered (i.e. fatigue, creep or creep fatigueinteraction). From the initial criticality assessment ofthe crack using the FAD analysis, it was found that thecrack was non-critical and unlikely to fail by plasticcollapse and was therefore fit-for service under thecurrent operating conditions.
Following these findings AMCO were able to make keyrecommendations including root cause failure Otherareas of Consultancy analysis, levels of componentmonitoring and potential for risk based approaches. Ifyou would like to learn more about AMCO’s defect /life assessment services please contact:Mr. Muhammad Turi: [email protected]
CONSULTANCY for PLANT DESIGNERS & FABRICATORS
AMCO also provides consultancy in areas not necessarily only related to plantintegrity, life assessment, asset management, inspection etc. Examples include:Consultancy in boiler and turbine parts manufacturing; Procuring materials(including new alloys like P911, P92, Ni-based etc.), Procuring fabricatedcomponents; Procuring/ developing design software (both mechanical andthermal) and training in its use etc. etc.
For more details, why don’t write to AMCO today at [email protected]
Innovations in Plant On-Site Services
1. Have you ever considered what contractors are doing with their assortment of devices and assessmenttechniques. No doubt this thought has crossed the minds of plant owners and operators around the world whenthe decision had been made to employ the specialized services of on-site component life assessment companies- and rightly so since the results of such assessments can have a very real impact on plant operation andprofitability in the wider scope.
2. This issue of AMCO Technology Newsletter will delve into the world of on-site life assessment, and shed somelight on this critical process and the various ways in which –when used properly - can form an integral part of theprocess, petrochemicals or power plant operation & maintenance activities. We will also present AMCOinnovations in this field and provide a couple of recent plant assessment success stories in our DecemberNewsletter.
3. AMCO often hears from plant owners/ operators in various regions of the world that their plant are notoperating to their maximum efficiency or are experiencing too many shut downs due to tube or other failures.The question that they ask is ‘What can we do to improve this situation? In response we have prepared atechnical plant audit plan which may include, amongst other things, plant visit, separate workshops for theplant managers and technical staff and access to plant inspection and other data. We audit your plant and thencompare it with our plant database that we have been benchmarking from around the world for a few yearsnow. The result is a detailed report on your plant audit and recommendations for systematic and knowledgebased improvement.
4. Often disagreements can develop between plant owners/ operators and plant manufacturers/ erectors wheneven new plants show problems. In such cases there is usually a need for a third party with a team of technicalexperts and knowledge which can work as an honest broker.
5. AMCO is always happy to take on this role and has been asked in the recent past to do this by companies in theMiddle East, Asia, Korea and Europe.
AMCOAl-Khobar,
Kingdom of Saudi ArabiaPhone: +966 (013) 890 3018 / 3019
Fax: +966 (013) 865 1318Web: www.amco-consult.com
e-mail: [email protected]
Forthcoming Events
October 2016: Technical Meeting, Jubail Saudi Arabia, • 2 days Technical Meeting on “High Temperature Plant Issues – HTPI ( 17-18 Oct. 2016)
October 2016: Training, Jubail Saudi Arabia, • 2 days P91 + P92 Training Course: Microstructure, fabrication, quality control, welding, steam oxidation and life assessment ( 19 - 20 Oct. 2016)
AMCO Monthly Article
AMCO believe to share its experience and knowledge with its partners. We have started monthly article, coveringdifferent plant issues and its solution.
The AMCO Monthly Article are offered within the following areas:
Plant Life Management Fitness for Service Risk Based Inspection/ Maintenance Advance Materials Reliability Engineering Qualification, Quality and Safety Methodology Materials Technology Quality Control/Assurance Corrosion and Erosion Microstructures and damage mechanisms Operations and Maintenance Vibration and Condition Monitoring
