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MATTHEWS Integrity Hub: HEAD OFFICE

FAILURE BRIEFINGS

We think it is important in the asset integrity industry to share information on equipment accidents and failures. This is the main way in which people learn how failures can be prevented and that the same mistakes do not happen again and again. As we have suggested in other articles, most causes of failure are well known and can be prevented by learning from things that have happened in the past

WE INVITE YOU TO PARTICIPATE

The more failure briefings we can show on these pages the better the chance of failures not repeating themselves unnecessarily. If you want to pass on details of failures you’ve experienced we will be pleased to edit them into our failure briefing format so they can be of greatest benefit to others in the plant integrity community.

HERE’S WHAT TO DO: Please contact us by telephone, or email with a brief summary of the type of failure you’ve experienced. Photos are particularly valuable. We don’t need to know names of companies or people involved; it’s the technical information on type of failure, investigation and causation we are interested in. We will then edit the information into a short failure briefing report, similar to the ones you see in the links below and will discuss it with you until it meets with your approval.

In the interest of commercial confidence and professional ethics WE WILL NOT

• Disclose the identity of any contributor to anyone
• Publish any sensitive information you don’t want us to
• Include anything that can damage the reputation of anyone involved
• Disagree with any technical conclusions already drawn about the failure
• Discuss it with any outside organisations such as HSE

Once you are happy with our failure briefing and you have given us permission to publish it we will post it on this website so that our readers can learn from it.

WE ARE PARTICULARLY INTERESTED in hearing about failures caused by fatigue, brittle fracture, rogue materials, operator error, non-code compliant design, poor site repairs and unauthorised modifications to equipment.

CHECK OUT THIS MONTH’S FAILURE BRIEFING REPORTS
from Matthews Integrity Hub: HEAD OFFICE

Click on the links to read the failure briefings

1. Failure of steam diffuser

2. Shell boiler failure

3. Crane brake failure

4. Mud pump flange failure

5. Vacuum vessel cracking

6. Steam-heated kettle’ failure