Vibration-induced fatigue management (Offshore Magazine)

How web tools enable effective piping vibration management

In the field of asset integrity management, it is corrosion and erosion that attracts the lion’s share of management time, resources and analysis. The majority of plants usually have a full-time corrosion or integrity engineer whose principal responsibility is identifying, preventing or mitigating possible corrosion or erosion damage events. This is because corrosion or erosion is almost inevitable, with potentially catastrophic consequences.

UK stats of vibration-induced fatigue failures

Causes of hydrocarbon releases
(UK Health & Safety Executive)

In contrast, vibration and its consequences attract significantly less attention and management activity. But inadequately managing the threat of vibration can be equally catastrophic – and, in fact, accounts for a relatively high percentage of reported failures, notably in harsh environments.

However, the approach to vibration management is changing, becoming more proactive, more preventative and more global. This has been driven by three factors:

Demand from operators with an international perspective
Wider dissemination of existing standards and industry guidance
Supply of enabling technologies that bring vibration to the heart of asset integrity management

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Full article (Offshore Magazine)
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Full article (Offshore Magazine)

Piping vibration management is not traditionally a problem that is pre-empted. However, by prioritizing cure over prevention, operators fail to spot weaknesses in their infrastructure and implement optimal mitigation strategies...

About the author

Rob Swindell, vibration engineering lead, Wood

Rob Swindell, CEng, FImechE

Rob has over 30 years’ oil and gas experience, working on a wide variety of on and offshore structural integrity projects related to vibration-induced fatigue issues on piping systems.

He is co-author of the Energy Institute document ‘Guidelines for the Avoidance of Vibration Induced Fatigue Failure in Process Pipework’, and has delivered a number of technical papers and participated in many industry forums throughout his career.

In his current role at Wood, Rob manages strategic ‘through-life’ facility fatigue assessments for our customers.