REPAIR STRATEGIES FOR CIVIL STRUCTURES UTILIZING NEW RISK BASED INSPECTION METHODOLOGY

摘要

Assessing risk is an integral part of working at a refinery. Process safety changes, equipment upgrades, and work tasks are risk assessed every day. Infrastructure supporting the miles of piping, process vessels, and the platforms and ladders used in daily unit operations are often taken for granted. Refinery structures do not have an infinite design life and may pose certain risks as they degrade over time. In a large refinery like BP's Whiting Refinery with over 12,000 structures, these risks must be assessed to prioritize repair and mitigation efforts. The Civil Structures Management Program (CSMP) at the BP Whiting Refinery was developed in 2004. Since the program's inception, millions of dollars have been spent in the yearly execution of refinery structural repairs. Like other on-going repair projects, funding and program scope are scrutinized as yearly budgets are developed. A review of the repairs made during the last 10 years of the program revealed no clearly definable reduction in the level of risk exposure. It was also recognized that there was not a good understanding of whether the level of risk was increasing or decreasing. Though tens of millions of dollars had been spent on repairs, there was no way of showing real reduction in structural risk in the refinery.