Subsea valves and actuators: a review of factory acceptance testing (FAT) and recommended improvements to achieve higher
- PDF / 2,522,448 Bytes
- 14 Pages / 595.276 x 790.866 pts Page_size
- 109 Downloads / 215 Views
REVIEW
Subsea valves and actuators: a review of factory acceptance testing (FAT) and recommended improvements to achieve higher reliability Karan Sotoodeh1 Received: 17 June 2020 / Accepted: 6 October 2020 © Society for Reliability and Safety (SRESA) 2020
Abstract Oil exploration is constantly moving into deeper waters. The costs associated with downtime and the maintenance of facilities and equipment such as valves and actuators, collectively known as Operation Expenditures (OPEX), are very high in the offshore sector of the oil and gas industry, particularly the subsea sector, where water depth may reach 1–3 km. Subsea valve and actuator failures contribute to other negative consequences such as loss of production and Health Safety and Environment (HSE) issues such as environmental pollution as a result of oil spillage. Therefore, more reliable subsea equipment, including valves and actuators, is required in the industry. The reliability of valves and actuators is largely dependent on testing, specifically factory acceptance tests (FAT) and qualification test programs. This paper reviews twelve existing tests based on international standards such as the American Petroleum Standard (API) and the International Standardization for Organization (ISO) for valves, actuators and manual gear overrides. Different types of tests such as pressure tests, function tests and operation characterization tests are included in this review. Parameters such as test pressure and duration, test preparation and methods for test implementation are discussed. Eight additional tests are proposed in this paper on the basis of industrial experience to minimize the failure rate of expensive subsea equipment and to increase its reliability. Keywords Subsea · Testing · Valves and actuators · Reliability · Failure prevention
1 Introduction Oil exploration is constantly moving into deeper waters. The costs associated with downtime and the maintenance of facilities and equipment such as valves and actuators, collectively known as Operation Expenditures (OPEX), are very high in the offshore sector of the oil and gas industry, particularly the subsea sector, where water depth may reach 1–3 km (Sotoodeh 2019a; Praveen et al. 2018; Placido et al. 2018). Other negative consequences, such as the loss of production and Health, Safety and Environment (HSE) issues such as environmental pollution due to oil spillage are connected to subsea valve and actuator failures. Therefore, more reliable subsea equipment, including valves and actuators, is required (Placido et al. 2018). Today, subsea valves and actuators face the tough challenge of being zero maintenance for long periods such as 20–30 years (Sotoodeh 2019a;
* Karan Sotoodeh [email protected] 1
Manifold Engineering, Baker Hughes, Oslo, Norway
Praveen et al. 2018). Different aspects of valve design, such as sealing, machining tolerance, material selection and corrosion resistance may be more complicated for subsea valves compared to the valves used for other sectors of the oil and gas indu
Data Loading...
