2017 ASME PVP was held at Hilton Waikoloa Village, Hawaii in July 16-20, 2017. The author developed the session for Life Cycle Management of Refinery Pressure Vessels which consisted with three technical presentations and one panel session. This paper overviews 2017 ASME PVP mainly focused on sessions for Life Cycle Management of Refinery Pressure Vessels.

View full abstract

It has been passed over 10 years since Omega method was incorporated in to API579⁄ASME FFS-1. Since the Omega method provides realistic remaining lives compared to the traditional LMP method, the application of the Omega method has been increased in the Oil and Petrochemical industry in Japan. Most of the application experiences seems to be remaining life evaluations based on the primary membrane stress delivered by a relatively simple hoop stress equation. This is very important achievement since it optimizes the equipment renewal cost without sacrificing the public safety.
On the other hand, it is notable that the Omega method is possible to evaluate creep strain that is crucial for FEM analysis model development while the LMP method is not. Incorporation of creep strain in FEM analysis would improve the accuracy of FEM model since the stress redistribution and creep relaxation could be accounted. Improvement of accuracy of FEM model will be able to enlighten us a potential local damage so that we could conduct an appropriate preventive inspection and maintenance. However, looking in the Oil and Petrochemical industry in Japan, as far as the Author knows, there are not so many FEM evaluation in creep range using Omega method. Considering the fact that, in the Oil and Petrochemical industry in Japan, most of the higher-margin units are operated in the creep range, so it would be valuable to improve the FEM based creep assessment technology to improve the reliability
From this viewpoint, we tried FEM analysis of the external pressure vessel operated in creep range as the first experience of API 579⁄ASME FFS-1 Part 10 Omega method application for our team, and developed ASME PVP2017-65194. In the following, the detailed evaluation procedure, the inspection findings and the comparison between inspection findings and FEM analysis of our ASME PVP 2017 65194 paper are reviewed for Japanese stakeholders to enhance the application of API 579⁄ASME FFS-1 technology in Japan.

View full abstract

The Japan Steel Works, Ltd. (JSW) developed the crack growth characteristics used in Fitness-For-Service (FFS) assessment for the old generation 2. 25Cr-1Mo steel heavy wall hydroprocessing reactors with the propagating crack-like flaws. This procedure evaluates the present integrity given by a current state of damage and the projected remaining life of reactor by the applicable FFS Codes. The study of API 579-1⁄ASME FFS-1 Part 9 Assessment of Crack-Like Flaws Level 3 assessment is introduced in this paper.

View full abstract

Hydroprocessing reactors are made of heavy wall Cr-Mo steels with stainless steel cladding and installed in the most of oil refineries in the world during past half century. After long time operation, they found several material degradation and⁄or damages due to high pressure and high temperature hydrogen services. This paper presents typical remediation method of flaws in stainless steel cladding of reactors including flaw sizing, FFS assessment and repair procedures.

View full abstract