NII: the theory of everything NDT?

Non-Destructive Testing (NDT) has been widely used as a testing and analysis technique to evaluate the condition of plant and equipment across the energy industry for decades. Having evolved through advancements in technology, Non-Intrusive Inspection (NII) links together Engineering, Integrity Management and NDT Enactment services in one package, which could be described as the equivalent to ‘the theory of everything’ in the NDT world, and plays a critical role in ensuring the continuity of production in normal operating conditions whilst eliminating the need for human entry in to a pressure vessel.

There is a significant inventory of plant and equipment requiring Internal Visual Inspection (IVI) within the Energy sector; a growing number as assets continue to operate beyond their initial design life. With a preventative instead of reactive approach to minimise the number of intrusive inspections without compromising safe and continued operations, NII provides a comprehensive, yet cost-effective insight over the traditional approach of IVI and is becoming increasingly used as NII continues to evolve.

Alongside the periods of economic volatility that challenges the industry, there is a continued drive to limit outages associated with turnarounds and shutdowns, as well looking for smarter ways of working, meaning it’s more important than ever for operators to ensure they implement and maintain a robust Inspection strategy to fully achieve the benefits that NII can provide – both today and in the future with technological and machine learning advances.

Early Adopters

With over a 35-year tenure, CAN Group was an early adopter of trialling and validating advanced inspection techniques associated with NII. From engineering proof of concept in the early 2000s, with over 17 years continuous Category 2 Membership participation in the HOIS collaborative project, CAN was also a contributor to the development and implementation of the original guidelines, now known as the HOIS Recommended Practice (HOIS-RP-103). The HOIS focus on NII guidance was driven by HOIS members and the UK regulator to provide a structured approach to the NII process with the aim of facilitating consistency of application.

In light of the many challenges the industry has faced over recent years, there’s been a significant rise in the number of operators who are actively increasing their utilisation of NII strategies and the associated Advanced NDT Techniques (ANDT) to better understand current plant and equipment condition, increasing reliability and reducing the need for costly unplanned shutdowns.

This increase is evident in CAN’s own experience having successfully executed over 200 NII specific projects, covering over 450 vessels across more than 40 site locations since the guidance was first issued in 2007.

With complementary services delivered by CAN’s Inspection business stream and ENGTEQ, it’s Engineering business stream, CAN Group is well placed to provide a full NII turnkey package by providing all aspects of the NII process under one roof; from the Integrity Review / Pre-Assessment, to the site-based enactment through to analysis and evaluation of inspection data and Fitness for Service assessments, enabling update/revalidation of RBA at a significant cost saving to its clients.

David McDonald, ANDT Operations Manager at CAN, explains: “NII can help operators achieve significant efficiencies; not only does it significantly reduce the risk to personnel when carrying out inspections in hazardous environments, as there is no requirement for human entry in to the vessels, it also has no impact on production as inspections can be carried out at any time, not just during a planned shutdown.

“The objective of the inspection is to be able to justify the continued operation of the equipment until the next inspection interval as specified in the Risk-Based Inspection. As such, the completed inspection must be compared with what was requested and the potential impact of any non-conformances considered.”

Neil Wilson, Principal Corrosion Engineer at ENGTEQ, continues: “An effective NII service requires a thorough understanding of the process conditions and materials in order to be able to predict the potential locations and types of degradation. This should result in an inspection which offers confidence in the current condition of the vessel to a degree that is at least equivalent to IVI and generates quantifiable data which may be used for comparison in future inspections – at a considerable cost and time saving to clients through one contractual interface.”

The Future

CAN remains at the forefront of new industry developments, actively participating in a number of forums and joint industry projects to further advance the field of inspection.

The use of digital twin / 3D models is just one example of how smarter solutions have delivered tangible benefits across the delivery of Inspection Services. This technology has enabled the initial onshore desktop review of NII work-scopes to facilitate enhanced planning of resources and greater accuracy of scope durations, due to the ability to navigate the asset and associated items of plant and equipment to determine location, layout and gain a better understanding of access.

Fully utilising advancements in technology provides CAN Group with the ability to efficiently collect large volumes of inspection data through increasing the utilisation of robotic collection systems.

CAN’s next major leap in optimisation is the use of data science for enhanced data analytics; machine learning and artificial intelligence technologies help to bridge this gap by enabling smart data for efficient analysis at speeds greatly improved to that what’s currently possible with NDT data analytics.

With developments in technology for both data capture and analysis, CAN Group’s personnel are key to ensuring there is a seamless transition from current to new ways of working. Its team of in-house subject matter experts in all disciplines associated with the NII process provides CAN Group and its clients the assurance that the adoption of new methods is delivered to the same high standard expected in all areas of its business. This is paramount in ensuring that CAN Group remains its customer’s first and repeated choice provider of safe, sustainable, high quality and professional services across its range of activities.

CAN Group is an established global provider of life of asset integrity services with our business steams CAN, ENGTEQ and VENTEQ providing innovative Engineering, Integrity Management, Inspection, QA/QC and Maintenance Solutions to the energy industry worldwide.

For more information see our website: www.cangroup.net

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