YOUR FUTURE CAREER IN ASSET INTEGRITY

The integrity industry; Exciting times

The requirement for integrity of components and systems is widespread across the engineering industry; oil and gas, aerospace, energy, power, nuclear, transport, medical, communications; the list is endless. It is an exciting time to be in this industry. Technology is changing rapidly bringing new engineering challenges. Very soon this will produce a new generation of integrity-related jobs very different to the well-established set you see around you today. Check out our article: Integrity jobs: what’s new? to see how quick these changes are happening around you.

The good news about a career in engineering integrity is that you can join it as a generalist or specialist and transfer easily to different roles. The principles of physics, science, maths and practical engineering that make up the discipline provide transferrable skills, easily adapted to different applications. Integrity is therefore a career in which you need never stagnate; there’ll always be opportunity to move to a new level.

The list below shows only a selection of areas in which new integrity problems will be a feature of the next ten years.

Renewable energy machines

Small scale power generators powered by renewable energy sources are here to stay and expanding rapidly. There are several thousand wind turbines in the UK and this is set to double in the next few years. Other micro- generation types will follow quickly to meet the increased demand in electricity consumption of electric vehicles. All this new equipment brings its own integrity problems.

Bonded Joints

Components for consumer goods, cars, aeroplanes and hundreds of other assembled items are now being increasingly being glued together rather than welded or bolted. At the moments the components are small but will get larger as bonding technology develops. Integrity of bonded joints is therefore set to be a real issue, comparable to the current situation with welded and brazed joints.

Integrity of autonomous systems

The idea of integrity of a system, rather than that of just a single component or assembly is likely to be one of the big growth areas of the next twenty years. Autonomous systems will soon be running most of our transport systems and integrity will be a major issue.The Aberdeen Oil & Gas Technology centre is leading the field in encouraging developments in this area; have a look at  their website www.theogtc.com

Automatons

Engineered parts for humans, robot-assisted humans (cyborgs) and pure robots will be here before we know it. A quick look through technology journals will reveal articles about them all over the place. That makes for an interesting list of completely new integrity problems. See our article: Snakes and swarms: the robots are coming.

NanoIntegrity

Almost every functional component can now be made smaller and it seems unlikely that this trend will stop. Nano-machines are making rapid inroads into the medical, defence, exploration and other technology-led businesses. All of this brings a new challenge of checking the integrity of microscopic ultra-precision components and the nano-machines they power. Welcome to a complete new engineering discipline; as different from today’s asset integrity role as the fixing of farm carts is to maintaining an A321 Airbus.

This is an exciting time to join the integrity industry. Come and have a look at it. Your degree will give you an excellent good start .Have a look at our Qualifications and training  webpage and see how the structure of qualifications and certification work.