Mechanical integrity of storage tanks and equipment

Mechanical integrity can be defined as the management of critical process assets to ensure that they are designed, operated and installed correctly.

The mechanical integrity plan includes equipment or assets such as pressure vessels, storage tanks, equipment, piping systems and associated hardware (valves, fittings, etc.), relief devices and shutdown systems. This plan covers the activities necessary to ensure that the equipment and assets provide the desired performance in a safe, environmentally sound and reliable manner.

This has led risk management engineers and analysts to consider establishing a set of enforceable standards for integrity management. standards for managing the mechanical integrity of storage tanks, pipelines and integrity of storage tanks, pipelines and equipment.

Consult our PIDT pipeline and plant integrity management tool.

Mechanical integrity of fixed equipment

Pressure equipment integrity management is the process of creating, implementing and maintaining management systems to prevent loss of containment of fixed equipment in the oil and gas, petrochemical and chemical processing industries. It is important to not only have an adequate FEMI program, but to have a high quality and sustainable one that exceeds compliance by performing risk-based inspections.

mechanical integrity of storage tanks

Storage tanks are widely distributed throughout the process industries. They are used to store a wide variety of chemicals, which may be flammable, toxic or environmentally hazardous. It is simple to understand the importance of maintaining their integrity and reliability, as any loss of containment could, in fact, lead to a severe process safety incident.

First of all, it is important to know the typical corrosion mechanisms and failure modes of the main tank components.

The second step, once the phenomenon is well understood, is to try to prevent it, by means of our PIDT integrity management tool. integrity management tool PIDTwhich monitors in real time the status of the tank and its components.

Finally, if a failure occurs (the probability will never be zero by definition) it is important to identify the problem and address it quickly through mitigating solutions that should be contemplated in the mechanical integrity and quality assurance manual.