With exciting new processes and technologies emerging daily, and the desire to maximise cost-effectiveness by operating assets beyond their original design lives, there is an ever-present demand to improve the tools and techniques we use, to enable us to make better decisions in less time.
With a lengthy track record of successfully supporting our clients with their structural integrity assessment methods development and validation, we offer expert advice to you across the full asset life cycle, covering:
- Fundamentals: From understanding the collective impact on structural performance of physical failure mechanisms such as creep, fracture and corrosion and complex loading conditions like cyclic, thermal and residual stress (themselves often the result of manufacturing processes like welding or forging, or from the operation of plant).
- Engineering: We offer experience in method development, including experimental validation for high temperature, fatigue and corrosive environments, and are involved in providing expert input to industrial steering groups.
- Implementation: We bring expertise in developing software in support of these activities – from scripts to automate data handling in an assessment, to a bespoke tool for your organisation, to software that helps you to manage and process material properties’ experimental programmes – allowing you to monitor and understand the condition of your plant.
We offer a range of core capabilities that enable us to support your method development and validation, including:
- Uncertainty modelling: We understand how to quantify and model your risk and uncertainty, and have developed and applied bespoke probabilistic methods across a range of industries, helping our clients optimise the operation of their assets through life.
- Bespoke software: We realise that the issues you face are uniquely linked to your business goals and desired outcomes. Whether designing or managing assets, we combine our deep physical understanding with the latest software tools, developing bespoke software that helps you address your organisation’s challenges.
- Development of lifing methods: Our experts have extensive experience of developing lifing methods to support clients to optimise the operation of their assets, including the treatment of weld residual stress, and for components operating at high temperatures and in corrosive environments.
Research: We have experience of both managing and delivering large research programmes. A large proportion of our staff have an academic research background which, when combined with our consultants’ commercial focus on delivery, allows us to help you understand your material and structural challenges.