MISTRAS provides expertise in inspection, engineering assessment, mechanical services, and at-height access to provide custom-tailored, comprehensive sulfidation corrosion protection programs.
Sulfidation corrosion attacks carbon steel and other alloys through naturally-occurring reactions in crude oil, creating a huge risk for refining equipment and other assets. Difficult to predict and costly to repair, sulfidation can cause corrosion failures in your piping, heater tubes, pressure vessels, and other oil refining assets.
Comprehensive Sulfidation Corrosion Programs
Successful sulfidation detection programs help you avoid these threats while cost-effectively protecting your asset’s integrity. MISTRAS engineers and technicians have decades of industry experience in dealing with corrosion. We can help mitigate the effects that accumulated sulfidation corrosion creates – ranging from poor mechanical integrity and low productivity up to and including unplanned facility.
In one comprehensive program, MISTRAS experts can help you protect your asset’s integrity by avoiding the threats that sulfidation corrosion damage creates. With a robust suite of non-destructive testing (NDT) techniques, engineering subject matter experts (SMEs) and multiple access strategies, MISTRAS can design and execute an inspection plan that is customized to your facility’s individual requirements.
MISTRAS integrates expertise in engineering consulting, NDT inspection, mechanical services, access strategies, and data management into a formal, proceduralized, custom-tailored program.
MISTRAS’ sulfidation corrosion protection program is broken into four phases:
- Project Scope, Applicability, and Risk Assessment
- Initial Field Visits
- Field Inspections
- Reporting
Project Scope, Applicability, and Risk Assessment
In the initial assessment, engineering SMEs define the project scope, by defining and reviewing on-site assets and componentry for susceptibility to sulfidation. Our engineering experts risk-rank assets, prioritize them for inspection, and develop inspection plans by analyzing operating condition factors, including but not limited to:
- Materials of construction
- Risk-based inspection (RBI) assessments
- Wall thickness
- Flow rates
Initial Field Visit
The next step of the process includes visual testing (VT) in the areas identified to be at risk for sulfidation. Our trained technicians use these initial visual inspections to determine which more advanced NDT techniques are needed.
In addition to standard visual inspections, MISTRAS also supplies American Petroleum Institute (API)-certified instructors to access assets in at-height or confined locations. These certified techs safely inspect hard-to-reach assets using rope access or professionally-piloted drones.
Sulfidation Corrosion Field Inspections
Using advanced and traditional NDT techniques, MISTRAS technicians will complete an in-depth inspection to determine the presence, location, and extent of any existing sulfidation corrosion damage.
Selecting from a wide breadth of available techniques, MISTRAS can find the most effective inspection solution for your plant:
- Automated Ultrasonics (AUT)
- Computed Radiography (CR)
- Electro-Magnetic Acoustic Transducer (EMAT)
- Fluoroscopy, also known as Real-Time Radiography (RTR)
- Guided Wave Ultrasonics (GUL)
- Pulsed Eddy Current (PEC)
In addition to conducting inspections, our multi-disciplined inspection personnel can perform any insulation stripping and re-insulation services that are required, helping to keep on-site personnel to a minimum.
Inspection Data Reporting
After inspections are completed, we’ll evaluate results and perform any necessary follow-up inspections. We then deliver a report consisting of detailed procedure descriptions and test results to our clients. We’re able to input these directly into your inspection database management system (IDMS), including MISTRAS’ Plant Condition Management System (PCMS).
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