AS2885.5:2020 Correction Amendment No 1
In AS2885.5:2020 Field Pressure Testing, Equation N.4(3) is incorrect. A correction amendment has been issued by Standards Australia, with the equation corrected. It is provided here, to ensure users of AS2885.5 have the correct information. Please also note that another correction amendment is underway, for Equation B.1.3(4) and Equation B.2(1). Please make a note of…
ISO standards set for adoption
(January 5th, 2023: This first week of the new year, before I’d really gotten my feet under the desk yet, has seen a good email exchange amongst ME-038 about the adoption of ISO standards. I had the post below sitting in the drafts section of WordPress, waiting to be published here, wouldn’t you know it,…
Questioning Competency Assessment
Ted Metcalfe provides me (us) with much insight and deep thinking about engineering, competency, ethical behaviour, learning from (engineering/technical) failures, and all kinds of other issues and aspects of life. He’s semi-retired but thankfully not sailing off into the sunset yet. He often talks about raising the competency/skills of up-and-coming engineers. We both share that…
Corrosion in old pipelines
Here’s another contribution by Jan Hayes, who sent these links to me because of the relevance to the pipeline industry, and similarities between San Bruno, and Enbridge Marshall. A recent CSB (Chemical Safety Board) video, titled “Wake Up Call: Refinery Disaster in Philadelphia,” (20mins) details a fire, explosions, and toxic hydrofluoric acid (HF) release that occurred…
Podcast Star!
The Pipeliners Podcast has been around since 2017, hosted by Russel Treat in the USA. I started listening to it in its early days, and listened for a couple of years, but recently took it off rotation in a podcast cleanup (it’s pretty focussed on US pipelines). Fortunately, though, I’ve become aware that one of…
Success: AS2885.3-2022 published
Today, Standards Australia has published the revised AS2885.3-2022, Pipelines – Gas and liquid petroleum, Operations and maintenance. Congratulations and thanks to the Part 3 committee members, who worked hard for 5 years, through the pandemic and all, to reach this publication stage. If you have subscription licensed access to Part 3, please make sure your…
AS2885.3 publication
Hello all For the past 4 months I’ve been “promising” (indirectly and with lots of caveats of course) that AS2885.3 would be published in August. I had high hopes, but of course now it’s September so that promise hasn’t been fulfilled. I followed up with Standards Australia this week, and they’ve apologised, and have prioritised…
Book Club for Failures: New Date and Signup link
We have a new date and signup for the BCfF: Monday August 22nd, 4:15pm-5:00pm AEST Sign up is via Eventbrite, and the meeting will be hosted in Zoom. Sign up here. Our first session will be short (45mins), to gauge interest and check expectations. If we have time, we’ll talk about the APGA Engineer’s Practise…
What interests you?
My recent webinar “Failure is Normal: A Tale of Two Bridges” generated some encouraging feedback, so I could be persuaded to present more webinars, if readers indicate sufficient interest.A couple of categories of possible topics come to mind; engineering practice, and more about learning from failure. Engineering Practice1) The Benefits of Engaging Independent Consultants(A discussion…
Book Club for Failures
There is enough interest in Ted Metcalfe’s book list, and the idea of learning from failures, that it’s time to set up a book club. It’s a book club for people in the pipeline engineering industry, interested in learning from failures. Answering the question “what happened?”, and being better engineers and pipeliners because we’ve paid…
External Interference: why we focus on preventing it
The link below goes to a news article and video, showing a real incident of external interference, which occurred in June 2022, in the UK. https://au.news.yahoo.com/watch-builder-miracle-escape-gas-pipe-explosion-111710226.html This link may not be functional forever. I have a copy of an mp4 file, and will post it if this link stops working. A fencing contractor is doing…
Unplanned Outcomes, Stories, and the Intent of our Standard
by Ted Metcalfe It may have been Einstein who famously said “The more I learn, the more I realise how much I don’t know.” More simply put, “We don’t know what we don’t know”. Gaining awareness of things which have not turned out well for others helps us to get better at what we do…
Gaining Confidence
by Ted Metcalfe Do I know what I’m talking about? Experienced engineers are able to make engineering judgements with confidence. Some of the reasons why pipeline engineers using AS2885 may benefit from asking a question in relation to confidence include: 1) Maybe you are required to make a decision in relation to application of the…
Asking Questions is the Easy Way to learn
Be a better pipeline engineer – ask the question! by: Ted Metcalfe We learn new information in many ways, and for many different reasons. Even when we are not trying to learn, or don’t think we need to learn, we seem to gather valuable information. For some people, lessons are really only learned if they…
Accumulating Knowledge
by Ted Metcalfe. Ask the question! Some of the reasons why pipeline engineers may benefit from asking a question in relation to accumulating knowledge include: 1) Maybe the matter you are working on is a bit out of the ordinary, and you are not sure exactly which part of the Standard should apply. ….Which clause…
Failure is Normal …. and Bridges can fail more than once!
APGA has advertised for our next technical webinar, via an email sent today (Monday 16 May). The webinar will be on June 15, 2022, at 12:30pm AEST presented by Ted Metcalfe. Get on over there and sign up via the APGA events website. https://www.apga.org.au/events/technical-webinar-failure-normal The title is: “Failure is Normal”. This is a concept that…
Venting pits, and the value of AS2885.info
There was a recent query about the requirements of AS 2885.1 for venting below-ground structures such as valve pits. It turns out the Standard is incomplete, because an editorial change in 1997 inadvertently omitted a key sentence and no-one noticed until 25 years later. Subsequent revisions of the Standard had applied the “ain’t broke, don’t…
Pigging a lined pipe – response (and a record-keeping caution)
The previous post gathered a number of helpful responses from experienced industry people. But before getting to the technical responses there is an interesting sub-text to this topic, relevant to everyone in the pipeline industry. None of the following is intended to be critical of the current operator, quite the contrary – they have recognised…
Pigging a lined pipeline
A question has been submitted to AS2885.info which is outside the experience of the team, so we thought we see if someone else out there is able to help: A transmission pipeline was previously wire-brush pigged on a few occasions in the last 30 years. However the current operator has recently realised that the line…
Principles
One of the difficult things about being an engineer (…besides everything you’ve just thought of…) is being able to recognise your own competency. Knowing your own competency is essential, especially in high-risk industries like pipelines and other potentially hazardous industries. Similarly, knowing the competency of the others around you is essential too. Not often contemplated…
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