The case study will review an API-618 reciprocation pulsation study and discus some common problems that can cause such studies to fail in prediction pulsation issues. Generally, the case study aims to raise awareness for the risk of excessive vibration and possibly fatigue failure due to changing operating process conditions. Changes to the design operating process conditions is something nearly any oil and gas facility will experience at one point throughout its system life. This can cause serious vibration which may present with a high risk of failure, loss of containment and loss of production. The process on how to avoid such a scenario and will be discussed, by highlighting the difficulties of identifying pulsation related vibration issues.

Applications: Facilities Engineering and Project Management; facility operations, maintenance and troubleshooting

Graduated as Mechanical Engineer from the Technical University of Berlin in 1993 and started his career as Noise and Vibration Harshness (NVH) Development Engineer in the automotive industry.
In 2008, he transitioned into the Oil & Gas sector working as a principal consultant, where he deepened his experience of the asset integrity and reliability engineering field, with a strong focus on process piping vibration and compressor pulsation analysis and mitigation.
Since joining Bureau Veritas in 2011, he became an expert with Reliability, Availability and Maintainability (RAM) studies by executing numerous studies for key Australian Oils and Gas facilities over the past years.