Life Management of High Energy Piping

High energy piping (HEP) systems, which operate at high temperature and pressure, are critical assets in production facilities. A failure can have catastrophic consequences from a safety perspective and in terms of equipment loss and downtime. In fact, loss of high-pressure steam due to a failure in a main run of steam supply piping could shut an entire production facility down. Because of this, HEP programs are established to ensure the integrity of the systems is maintained in a safe and reliable condition throughout their lifecycle. There is no one-size-fits-all for the life management of these critical assets at steam generating production facilities because there is a great variety in age, design, materials, and owner objectives. Life management of these assets is beneficial in that it provides a structured, systematic approach to creating and implementing a program including evaluating the current program (whether formal or informal), what the objectives of the program are (short and long term), what equipment is in place, and its history.

It’s important to note that an HEP program, put in place for overall life management, is not synonymous with an inspection program, though inspections are an important part of an overall program; inspections should be used in conjunction with analytical tools, real time monitoring, and laboratory examinations. The overall approach is life management – not inspection management – of the equipment.

The approach described in this paper will cover identifying locations of interest, risk-ranking those locations, implementing a plan for determining the health of the highest risk locations, and taking actions based on the health that has been determined.