Inspection data analysis software that reduces inspections by 20%

Project Summary

Project overview:

Despite the significant volumes of inspection and integrity data gathered to manage the integrity of pressure equipment over decades, industry has low confidence in its quality. This has resulted in missed opportunities to identify trends and failure patterns, potentially missing integrity threats.

Unlocking the exceptional value of unused and under-valued legacy data, IMRANDD’s Advanced Inspection Data Analysis (AIDA) utilises historical inspection and integrity data to calculate accurate corrosion rates and remaining life of pipework which gives engineers the confidence to safely extend inspection intervals.

The AIDA software platform uses a bespoke set of algorithms including automated reasoning to identify, process and cleanse defective inspection data. Improving this data enables users to evaluate the potential degradation mechanisms of a static pressure system pipework more effectively.

The AIDA software platform also provides an advance alarm system to predict anomaly degradation to support remaining life calculations and repair and maintenance prioritisation, which results in extending inspection intervals and a reduction of shutdown schedules thereby reducing operating costs.

Key results:

A functioning software application was developed and successfully trialled using data supplied from Dana’s Tritton asset.

The AIDA software demonstrated the capability to have traceable decisions as to which reports have good/bad data and which readings can/cannot be used reliably. Existing practice would see engineers interpret data manually which is time consuming.

A key advantage of the AIDA software is the speed of analysing large amounts of data to arrive at similar conclusions which could be used as input for risk-based inspection’s (RBI), making the RBI process faster and better.

This project created a graphical user interface to provide data visualisation and prioritisation.  The software provides the user with the ability to process inspection data 95% quicker than manual efforts allowing operators to visualise asset risks and identify failure patterns for specific pipework or pressure systems.

Industry value:

AIDA has the potential to reduce manual analysis of inspection and integrity data by 95%. The useable inspection data from AIDA provide a better understanding of asset risks, lowering costs and failures ultimately reducing the need for further inspections by up to 20%. AIDA has the potential to deliver £500M savings to the UKCS through the prioritised inspection and maintenance.

Lessons learned:

A key aspect in developing AIDA was to verify the algorithms used and ensure that the methodology/logic behind the process of cleansing the data were correct. IMRANDD added an additional resource to the team who reviewed every aspect of AIDA which was key to the overall project.