Episode Transcript
Transcript
00:00
Rhett: On this episode of Pipeline Things, we continue our discussion on the IPC series, and we get into a discussion on dents. And what happens when you find standards that have- or recommended practices that have errors in them?
00:12
Rhett: What are the implications for the operator and what should you do when you encounter that? It's a good case study, it's an enjoying paper with a person who has not one but two names and requests that you identify him by those two names as we welcome Steven John Polasik on this episode.
00:28
Rhett: Thanks for joining us on this episode of Pipeline Things.
00:42
Rhett: All right, welcome to today's episode of Pipeline Things. I am your host, Rhett Dotson, my co-host, Christopher Deleon. Super excited to be with you as we continue this series on IPC and the publications that we found of interest to people.
00:56
Rhett: But before we go there, Chris, I think, you know, there's a lot going on in our lives. I think it's for a while to give an update, let the audience know. I mean, it's, you know, they,
Chris: What's going on?
Rhett: What's going on? Me or you first?
Chris: So, you know, you know the football, right? And I have a deep passion for football.
Rhett: Fantasy football I'm aware of. And you're not very good at it for the record, but you do have a deep passion for it, I agree.
Chris: I did win week one, we'll leave it there. And so, Juliette is in competitive soccer. And so one of the moms is like,
1:30
Chris: Hey, does Juliette wanna play powder puff flag football? Now all my kids—
Rhett: So it's a whole, wait, is the soccer team she's the one the soccer so they're forming
Chris: So, like several members of the soccer team are now going to be in Sunday league flag football.
Rhett: 5 on 5 type stuff?
Chris: I don't know the numbers yet but yeah basically
Rhett: Has your daughter ever watched football?
Chris: No, or caught a ball. This is gonna be really fun and
1:58
Chris: 24 hours later now Gemma signed up not only Julie and also Leo now- hold on, hold on. Fast forward 24 more hours by me registering Gemma to play.
2:09
Chris: I've now somehow also become the de facto coach of our flag football team.
Rhett: Coach, not assistant coach?
Chris: The coach, head coach.
Rhett: Did you check a box that said I would be willing to help- did you-
Chris: Apparently, I got signed up
Rhett: Through the social network?
Chris: Volun-told. So, I'm about to become an expert at flag football real quick.
Rhett: You're about to do more than that Chris.
2:32
Rhett: I don't know if you realize this for all my audience out there, I have four kids. My kids went through baseball. I learned one thing when you volunteer from coaching. It’s like a Supreme Court appointment. It's a lifetime appointment-
Chris: It never goes away.
Rhett: You are now the designated flag football coach-
Chris: For Gemma's team for for now until she no longer-
Rhett: For perpetuity no and then if Leo chooses another sport people be like well Chris coached before.
2:55
Rhett: Why shouldn't you coach that sport? Congratulations, my friend. Welcome.
Chris: Yeah, it'll be fun. So, I'm going to learn about a bunch of plays and rules. And so now I'm playing the other football. I'm deeply involved in the other football now.
3:06
Rhett: No, you. Yes. And you have to the most fun part is you figure out how to organize practices.
Chris: Oh, it's more than just practice.
Rhett: You're going to have 10 girls out there running wild on the field, throwing balls all over the place with. And you're going to have to figure out how to get them in-
Chris: To catch a ball, how to run plays, how to scheme and be competitive and all that fun stuff. So, I mean,
3:27
Chris: in all honesty, I'm super excited about it.
Rhett: I'm actually kind of excited for you.
Chris: I'm kind of excited.
Rhett: We're going to see how good of a coach you are.
Chris: Yeah. It'll be fun. So don't ask me about the record in a couple of weeks. The learning curve is real.
3:41
Chris: But what about you, man? Football is big in my life. What's going on with you?
Rhett: Man so you know, Caleb, we started high school this year. So, I bought the hat because we are we are now full Cy-Fair bobcat band parents.
Chris: Yeah, but he's kind of a big deal. Like he's freshman, playing an instrument, gets in band. I mean, it doesn't sound like he's left bench player. It sounds a little different going on.
4:02
Rhett: So, it started with three a days in the middle of summer where they were practicing nine hours a day out on the concrete in in the summer in July, I've been shocked.
4:14 The level of like Cy-Fair’s band competition level is very, very high. They were like 10th in the state last year, I think. So, it's real. Like there's a lot of pressure on them and it's fun to watch.
4:26
Chris: So like all I could think of is like these two bands coming out looking at each other, like staring each other down and like it's like highly competitive.
Rhett: No, It's already been addressed. So, one of the first things that the band director did is told us like,
4:39
Rhett: Look, when we were in school, you know, you did things like, blood makes the grass grow. No, not anymore. You cheer for the other band.
Chris: What??
Rhett: You congratulate the other band.
Chris: What??
Rhett: Yes,no.
Chris: There's no Hootspot in that at all.
Rhett: Well, I'm just telling you, you grew up in a different environment. I'm telling you, if you show up to your flag football game with someone like “death to the other team”
Chris: Oh it’s on.
5:01
Rhett: Yeah, you're probably going to get banned from the flag football.
Chris: Yeah, look, either the flag is coming off or the girl's going down. Like there's no in between.
Rhett: Oh, Lord.
Chris: This is going to be real.
Rhett: And just in related news on pipeline things podcast,
5:13
Rhett: We'll be looking for a new co-host because Chris will be arrested before next year.
Chris: Hey, there's no Tyreek Hill stuff going on here like week one of Miami Dolphins.
Rhett: Oh my gosh. All right. So, now the audience is fully aware of what's going on in Christopher and I's lives. It's time to introduce our guests. So, this guest is a personal acquaintance of mine.
5:34
Rhett: I'd go so far as to say friend, but I don't know that he considers me the same way, so.
Chris: We can qualify.
Rhett: I don't know, I can't really introduce him as like a personal friend because then that could be, he might come on the show and be like, I don't know. But no, it's my pleasure in this continuing IPC paper series to bring on our guests, Steven Polasik. Steven, if you'd like to come on, take a seat. That is your cue. And while Steven's coming on board, I will say that Steven and I were actually co-authors on this paper that we're doing.
6:01
Rhett: And the title of it is "State of Dent Screening and Shape-Based Assessments." It was an IPC 2022 paper. So, Steven, I'm gonna do my best to let this show be about you and your paper,
6:11
Rhett: 'cause you were the presenting author. You were the force behind it. So this is the Steven Polasik show. Welcome. How are you feeling?
Steven: Oh, great.
Rhett: Yeah? Having fun? Having fun?
6:22
Rhett: Well, I hope so. You're going to have more fun as we continue on the series. So if you don't mind, absolutely. If you don't have fun by the end of the series, you know what? You don't have to come back.
Steven: The entire series?
Rhett: The show, the show.
Steven: Okay.
Rhett: Hopefully you enjoy some of it.
Chris: But we do have to finish the episode. There's no walking out.
Steven: How many episodes are there?
Rhett: Hey, I don't know what the over and under is on whether or not Steven finishes this episode, but you'll have to stay tuned through the end to find out whether or not he leaves.
6:45
Rhett: So, so Steven, for the audience, tell us a little bit about who are you, what brings you here, who do you work for?
Steven: Yeah, Steven John Polasik, the full name, worked for DNV and been there for 19 years, doing crack assessments, integrity management on pipelines, consultant for oil and gas operators. Yeah,
7:07
Steven: Just try to get involved in as much stuff as I can. I really like figuring out how stuff works, like different models and things, and things.
Rhett: So, two things stick out to me there. Number one, you introduced yourself by your full name.
Steven: Yes.
Rhett: Is that because like, you are in a lot of trouble as a kid and your mom is always yelling Stephen John, or is it just what's what's the Stephen John thing
Steven: First couple of days of work, you fill out the forms and I was like, well,
Chris: Formal.
Steven: Yeah. I had to turn it in because it was a while ago.
Rhett: And 20 years later, it's Steven John.
Steven: No, what's your middle name? John.
7:41
Steven: So then my email address was my full name with the middle name. Oh, could not figure out who to talk to to get that gone. So, you know, then I did eventually get that done.
7:53
Steven: But now it says Polasik comma Stephen John when I email people?
Chris: Yeah.
Steven: So sometimes people I know and have worked with, like down the hall will reply, “John,” to the email that I've sent.
Chris: So do people ask you, if you go by Steve, Stephen or John, or is it just implied, like they'll just pick one and say, what's up John? You're like, no, it's not John.
Steven: No, Stephen, which you wrote Steve, but I fixed it on my house.
Rhett: That was Actually, we will talk to Trip S about that. She has a tendency to miss like small details like that. So definitely blame the producer.
Steven: Oh, I thought I was blaming you guys, not somebody else.
Chris: Oh no, it is never our fault. It is always the producer's fault.
Rhett: So, the second thing I noticed, it's really funny. You actually, in your description of what you do,
8:37
Rhett: didn't mention dents as a core thing, but this paper's about dents. So, will you help us bridge the gap? How do you find yourself from cracks, Resident Smart Guy doing all sorts of other stuff into dents for this paper.
8:50
Steven: Yeah, I mean, it's, not gonna lie. It's a straightforward story. Like we, I like making
Rhett: Well, don't make it straightforward. Let's embellish it. If you can involve the mafia, guns,and potentially someone getting arrested, we're good.
Steven: Got it. All right. All true, by the way. Yeah, I like making programs or algorithms for figuring out different processes,
9:15
Steven: 1183 came out and yeah, there's all these different screening levels, like at least four, and then there's a level two assessment. And basically, my line manager said, "Can you make something that implements this process?" I said, "Yes." So, I started with the more complicated one, level two, and then I worked back into the other screening processes. Sorry. I'm not sure who to look at.
Rhett: It's cool. You can turn and look at both of us, but I'm the better looking one.
Chris: Just not at the same time. Cause that'd be kind of weird.
Rhett: Unless you're like a flounder and you have a lot of them. Anyway, never mind.
9:19
Steven: I've got skills.
Rhett: So, use them.
Steven: Got it. I'm honed in. All right. I did forget what I was talking about.
Rhett: No, it's okay. I was going to say, I'll catch the audience up a little bit.
10:00
Rhett: So, if you're in our audience out there and you're not familiar with dent assessments or as they're described in 1183, Steven's referring to the different levels of assessments that were put into there. And the level two assessment requires you to extract various lengths and areas, combine those links and areas in order to produce a shape parameter and remaining life. That's what you're describing as level two. There are also several additional layers underneath there that some of them are based only on the depth. Some of them are based on, there's even, there was, there is no longer, but there was a screening table. There are iterations under that that use less information that are supposed to be less onerous to do.
10:35
Rhett: You were tasked with putting together a tool to handle all of those.
Steven: Yeah, correct.
Rhett: Gotcha. All right, and that was your introduction to dents?
Steven: I mean, we've, I mean, the SEST dents before based on ILI or something, but usually that was more, you know, what do you, you know, regulatory requirements were the best options, the best places to dig, not so not shape parameters, no FEA, no, you know, concern about it. I didn't, I didn't fully understand some stuff that came up while I was doing the process. So, I learned a lot.
Rhett: So you develop it, so then without, I don't know, still not sure if anybody involved, gets arrested. But how did it lead to the genesis of the paper?
11:22
Rhett: So you’re tasked with, hey, Steven, we have these various methods. Hey, please give us a tool to execute these methods.
Steven: Yeah.
Rhett: How does that work its way into the paper?
Steven: It's easy, but I'll embellish. So anyway, level two, so that's supposed to be one of the more detailed assessments, more precise, did that one first, because like you said, you've got to do the contours or shapes.
11:47
Steven: You get caliper data, there's a little bit of noise, you've got to filter that out, fit some kind of smoothing factor to it, but still retain the shape, still make it look like it's supposed to. I thought that was interesting, focused on that for a bit. Yeah, and then it was like, well now I've got this process down, And like you were saying, each level uses more and more data. So, since I was at level two, I already had everything I needed to do level one, all the different methods in level one. So, I was like, well, why not just apply that every single time? If I'm already doing all of the work for level two, I'll just try all of them. And so, we did that. And then we noticed that there were some trends that we weren't entirely sure why they were happening. As in the- So you start with the screening
12:36.
Steven: You want to get the most conservative. Anything that you know is not going to fail or have any problems for hundreds or thousands of years or whatever. Let's not concern ourselves about that one. Let's focus on the ones that are closer to to needing some kind of an intervention. So, you do it more detailed assessment and figure out what to do.
13:01
Steven: So, you know- the- ideally the first step of that you would, would be the most conservative. So the shortest life
Rhett: Right
Steven: and then another step, you know, let's say, you know, it doesn't meet your criteria 50 years or whatever number you want and then you would go to the next level and then that level you would expect to say something higher than 50, or you would hope anyway, because now it's more precise, ideally less conservative. Yeah, then you would expect that trend. And we were seeing the opposite. Well, not the opposite. It was really only the table that you mentioned earlier. That one was not as conservative as it was supposed to be.
13:45
Steven: The document says it's a minimum remaining life or it used to say and so, you know, and it wasn't turning out to be that.
Rhett: Right. So, to catch the audience up, right? Put it back into perspective there. You've got multiple levels from screening to level two. What we found and went really with Stephen John found- Now I feel like I have to call you Stephen John for the remainder of the episode so
Steven: Please do
Rhett: Will do. Stephen John found was that if a dent passed the screening assessment, it should pass all of the other assessments and ideally have a higher life. And what we found is that it wasn't necessarily the case. So, we were running dents that were supposed to have at least a thousand years of life. Let's just use that example. And then we would run the next level up and find out that it only had 250. And that's contradictory because you would expect the lives to be getting larger as you're incorporating more information, so.
Steven: Yes.
Rhett: It wasn't, so such a formal answer.
Steven: Well, I'm a formal guy.
Rhett: Do we put him under oath? I feel like we put him under oath at this point. So, what was your, I'm just curious, what was your initial reaction as you're finding this out? 'Cause I remember, I was not, I'm ashamed to say, I was not the first person you reached out to. I highly doubt that. I came into the picture much later. Yeah. So, what was your reaction as you're figuring this out?
Steven: Well, I mean, since I was making something, and it was a, you know, it's not a straightforward, it's relatively complex, complicated process. So, my first thought was wait, did I do something wrong?
Rhett: I'm the one that made the mistake.
Steven: Yeah. I mean, that's what that's what happens when you're developing something or just implementing a model that, you know, you've got to double check that everything was working fine, all the examples from past research that I could have. I was getting the same numbers, looking in isolation. So then,
you know, we talked to the people that are dent experts at DNV. So, we talked to them first. And then we, yeah, reached out to you guys, you and Ryan.
Rhett: Yep.
Steven: Made a little cute little presentation. And I kind of, I think at some point, I might have said something along the lines of, Oh, hey, this is interesting and showed the plot. And you've seemed more excited about it than I expected.
15:57
Rhett: Did I really?
Steven: You did.
Rhett: I feign excitement a lot, I'm sorry. No, I do remember. So that was the point where we got involved. And I remember we had that phone call. And I think it kind of sets the stage. I want to, you know, there's a couple of things I think we could bring out here. One is it's important to recognize that you were at DMV. I was at D2 Integrity and Ryan was at Rosen.
16:19
Rhett: So, what you kind of saw was we didn't put up walls between the consultancies, which I really like. We just all got together and were like, "Hey, this is a problem we observed. What are you guys thinking about it?" It was, from my perspective, extremely refreshing to see us work together corporately to try and understand what we felt was an important document for the industry and for operators in terms of assessing dents and understand, you know, our first, the first reaction you write was, wait, no, no, no, no, we got to be wrong. Like, we must be misapplying something. Let's try and dig into it. And so, we all went our separate ways. Ryan went his separate way, I went my way, you went your way. And we tried various things to solve the problem and weren't able to, to make heads or tails out of it. And that's when we came together and decided we probably needed to put together a paper identifying the issues.
17:08
Steven: Yeah, I mean, it's kind of like expanding circles. You talk to your friends or coworkers first and then you expand out later and further and further. And as you're doing that, you get more and more expertise and you're able to see whether is this trend real? Should it be there?
Rhett: Yep.
Steven: Yeah, and then you can all come together and get a plan. Sorry, I haven't looked at you at all.
Chris: It's okay.
Rhett: He wants you to ask a question Chris.
Chris: I'm happy to ask a question. So, for the audience if they if they may not have read the paper, so. Obviously, you've talked about your journey getting to this point right of you know, you had a task. You were working on it. You found a discrepancy. You had some self -doubt, oh wait no, maybe I'm right then you got some confirmation, and you decided to write a paper on it. Do you provide any outcomes? We like to call it the so what, right? So, all of this happens, so what? What's the path forward?
Steven: Yeah, I mean, well, in the paper, we do outline a path forward. We say, we mentioned the table, obviously. And then we then, there's the other screening levels that are in 1183. And so, we were like, well, we don't think this is the right way to go at the moment. So, use these other screening levels instead,
18:22
Steven: and then, you know, the next step is, you know, getting clarification from API and etc. for the recommended practice. They're editing it. They're coming out with a new addition now. Well, the committees are meeting. So, right. So yeah, I mean, that's that's the process, I guess, you, yeah. Okay, something- something looks odd. Everybody gets together and says yeah. You know, do we need to change what's- what's already out there? Yes or no? And then you know now. We're moving forward with a new addition.
Rhett: All right. Well, hey, we are gonna take a real quick break and we come back I want to talk about what this means for the audience not specifically in terms of 1183. But you as an audience we're gonna get into is what implications does this have in terms of responsibility and ownership for standards whenever you are applying them.
19:14
Rhett: I think it's a conversation you're going to wanna hear, so hang on and we'll be right back.
19:24
Rhett: All right, welcome back to Pipeline Things where we're continuing our conversation with Stephen John, classic, on the IPC paper regarding the state of dent screening and shape-based assessments. Steven, I know you're- you're chomping at the bit to get back into the technical side of things, but I feel like I left some things- Maybe open and that I need to close up and they involve you. So, this is a little game. I've been playing with our guests lately because it guarantees they'll return. So, I need you to choose one of the other. Okay, you ready? Lord of the Rings or Harry Potter?
Steven: Lord of the rings.
Rhett: Give me some absolutely right 100 %. Thank you for validating me there. Video games or board games?
Steven: Video games.
Rhett: Oh, two for two. Books or movies?
Steven: Books.
Rhett: I think we're kindred spirits. Marvel or DC?
Steven: Marvel.
Rhett: Four for four. This last one.
20:16
Rhett: I struggle, and I wasn't sure I thought about even letting Chris ask this one, baseball or football?
Steven: Neither.
Rhett: Neither I knew I was gonna get a neither based on his alright then, what is it? Is it anything? No sports, not a sports fan?
Steven: Yeah, I'll say that on air. I'm not a big sports fan.
Rhett: You heard it here first on Pipeline Things that Steven John Polasik is not a sports fan. Tomorrow, we talk about what is Steven John's hobby?
Steven: Lots of things. Yeah.
Rhett: Interrogating standards.
Steven: Name it, name it. It's probably it.
Rhett: Wow. Except-
Rhett: Not sports.
Steven: Except sports.
Rhett: Except sports. Got it. Fantastic. Um all right. Well, I just wanted the audience to get a little more flavor.
Chris: So, the real question would be would he ever try out for a Fortnite tournament? And what does he think his probability of winning is? I mean,
Steven: I was 16th in a Fortnite episode.
21:11
Steven: Not episode. There. I obviously don't know what's going on. 16th. But that was because I was just running around, didn't know what I was doing.
Rhett: Oh, it's okay. He's making a joke.
Steven: And I just made it to the end.
Rhett: My son and I just went to the Fortnite world championships in Dallas, and we watched them play out on stage.
Chris: By went, he went to observe, not participate.
Rhett: Observe, no not participating. No, these kids, even though they did, I did learn.
Chris: Full clarity.
Rhett: You know, first place team walked away with, I think it was, I think they split $300,000, if I'm not mistaken.
Chris: Yeah, and they were also both buying an age younger than you are.
Rhett: It's true, you had the two ages together and they were younger than I am for sure. Okay, back to the task at hand.
21:48
Rhett: We were on this conversation with 1183 and I want to bring it back to what the audience can take away from this. You know? And so, as we're thinking about this, I think a lot of people want to focus on 1183 or the standard. And I think that's, you and I agree, that's the wrong approach to take. 'Cause the truth is, this is not the first standard, that’s had errors. And if the audience isn't aware, it's not even the first dent standard that has had errors or had issues attached to it. The original rock dent standard, which was API 1156, which had some equations for determining remaining life was withdrawn a few years after its publication, right? I think what's important, and I wanna talk about the takeaway from this is- And I'm going to ask this question this way. If you use a recommended practice and the equations from it and follow them to the letter of the T, does that absolve you of blame if there are technical errors or issues with those equations? Does it absolve you of blame if those equations are even printed wrong?
22:53
Steven: Those are great questions.
Rhett: You choose not to answer them or you want Chris to answer them? Chris. What do you think? Let's give our guest a break. What do you think?
Chris:Yeah, so we as an industry specific?
23:04
Chris: I mean, we're gonna talk about what we do, right? We're property integrity and when we do our job, we normally have no less than three resources that we can turn to to ensure that we're doing appropriate engineering, right? So, a lot of our audience our engineers and their property integrity engineers. And so you'll have your company standards, right? So often called SOPs or engineering standards. You'll have some form of regulation, right? Not in all cases, but often it's at least there for guidance if you're not subject to it. So that could be at a state level or a federal level. And the third one is that you'll have standards or recommended practices, right? In this case, 1183 is a recommended practice, right? It's not a minimum expectation. It's not a standard. It's a way to approach it. And for the record, there are other types of documents, like guidance documents or TRs. API has TRs, technical reports, RPs, and then standards. And so, you know, if we talk about this idea of if a standard is incorrect or maybe there's a typo or there's a misprint, you know, I think that it's always best practice to turn to other references that you have, right? One, your operating procedures are standard practice. Internally, your engineering standards and two, the feds. And if we look at regulation,
24:15
Chris: I wanna isolate this to dents. Before we had 712C3, which was on the gas side, before that got pulled with some of the recent changes that have happened, there's always this element of a subject matter expert review, right? All your work has to be reviewed by a subject matter expert. And I think that ties in really nice to this, right? I mean, you guys always hear me advocate that, you know, we need to really continue things like knowledge share. And there's different platforms to do that. One is this podcast, two is publishing papers. And that's why we targeted this one specifically, right? As it's, you guys did a good job of being diligent in publishing some findings so that the rest of the industry can learn. So, I would say I don't think it absolves you. You know, I think that for the operators, not consultants, you know, a lot of your standard procedures will have a RAA, a responsible party. So, who's responsible for doing the work? Then you'll have an approver or somebody who ultimately is accountable to the quality of that work. And then you'll have a technical authority who's responsible for approving things that are high level and management of change processes.
25:20
Chris: So, I would say in short, you're not absolved. There's a lot of people around you and things around you that you should that you should use to ensure that you're being technically accurate. So no, it doesn't absolve you.
Rhett: Steven, John this question’s for you. After doing all this work, what are your takeaways for our clients for the industry? What's the message you'd like people to receive from that?
Steven: Yeah, sorry. Well, the most important thing is just, you know, we've got these standards like you were mentioning. They're brought together by a bunch of people, consensus, you know, reviewing things, you know, it's just because they're there, they're not, you know
Rhett: Infallible.
Steven: Yeah, infallible. But, you know, even then, even if they were perfect, you should still go in, you should still try to figure out why things are happening. Like, what's the, you know. What's the trend as the depth increases in the burst pressure based on the different models? Does that make sense? Is there an inflection point or something that you wouldn't, not that you wouldn't, even if you did not show it to look for, should it be a straight line? Should it have some kind of curve in it? Like look into it, figure it out. And then, yeah, talk to the other people. Sorry I was going to use it an acronym like Chris did, but I couldn't think of one.
Rhett: That's okay. So, I do think, you know, there is there's importance in thinking critically Nothing should ever be a black box, no matter how you you, you roll it out, right? And I would encourage those in our industry definitely, no matter the standard even if it's as simple as you know, B31G, which I think a lot of us take for granted… Understand what goes into that calculation, right? And understand sometimes the limitations of those equations.
27:13
Chris: And that's such a good one, right? I mean, literally just this week, we get another ILI report that an operator asks us to help them with an FFP. And we tell them that we're gonna review burst pressure calculations and we immediately get questioned. Like, wait, what are you gonna do? Well, we're gonna rerun the modified B31 calculations. Why? You will not believe how many times we find discrepancies between modified B31 calculations as simple as it may sound. You know how I feel about R-String and Effective Various, we'll table that one, but I mean, I think it just highlights the need for... I came up with an acronym, CYA, and it's not
Steven: Never heard of it.
Chris: Yeah, it's not see ya, like not my problem. I'm gonna bounce and go work for somebody else, but rather cover your assessment. We'll go with that one, right? So, what else can you do after you do work that allows you to CYA, right? Cover your assessment. Is that going to a complimentary corroborating standard, SOP, get an SME to review it, get one of your peers to rerun your calculations, or in this case, anybody of work, right, whether it be a standard, RP, whatever it may be.
Steven:Yeah, I mean, I think it's more than just like checking the work though. Like, I mean, anyone can rerun something.
Chris: Yeah.
Steven: Right, it's more of a, like you mentioned the B31G. I mean, there's the one area over the original area term. Like, well, what happens, thinking critically, what happens as that number approaches zero or as that ratio approaches one, what does the burst pressure do? What does it mean when the area is exactly the same in that equation? And then asking questions.
Rhett: And I think that's with operators often being strained for resources that can be difficult to do.
29:03
Rhett: And so, the recommendations that I'd say is that, again, as operators, particularly when they get into a new field of study, whether that's dents or whether that's cracks. We saw this probably eight years ago. I felt like all the operators were struggling with this. What do we do with cracks? How do we understand these models? How do we understand burst pressures? I think it's similar with dents. How do we understand what's written in the standard? I would encourage operators to reach out to multiple sources sometimes, right? Maybe, and I know that always costs more money and they don’t want to hear that, but it does produce a very good product when you get different points of view, So for instance, hey, you know, a consultant X or person X or expert X recommends that we do the assessment this way. What do you think, right? And when you get feedback from different people, it'll often help you start to understand maybe the nuances, complexities, challenges and the various methods.
Steven: I agree.
Rhett: Anything to add?
Steven: I'm not, I don't know how to follow it up. You were so passionate.
Chris: Yeah. And I think one observation is, I mean, this, I think one of the reasons why we like this IPC paper was it was just exemplar of some of the ongoing challenges that we see as consultants, right? So, we're often called in to support projects or to take a look at something and offer opinion or observations. And again, we've said it time and time again, we're just going to go home, right? I think the approach is relevant, right? How many times are some of our audiences tasked with something where, you know, it's like, hey, we're going to develop this new procedure. We're going to tackle this new challenge. In this case, it could have been dents, for example, maybe cracks or hard spots or a new ILI technology. And there's a, there's a sense of trust, I feel like that comes with like implied trust that comes when you have published work,
30:44
Chris: right? It's like, Hey, in this case, you know, 1183, you know, it's, it's there was a review process, you know, was founded on a body of work that was, you know, experimental and empirically validated to some degree, you know, however you would like to describe it. And so, they normally come with an implied sense of trust, right? Or if you get a report from a vendor and it says, hey, we use this standard to perform these calculations, I think again, the idea here is just be diligent, right? I mean, own up to the responsibility of performing the calculations and understanding what happens and understand your technical limitations, right? If you get to a point to where maybe you're not understanding if the trend line's going a certain way, does it make sense or not? Again, phone calls are free, reach out and ask for help.
Rhett: So Stephen John, as we look to wrapping up this episode, we have one critical question for you. Are you gonna be back at IPC this year?
Steven: Yes.
Rhett: Oh, fantastic. Are you, do you wanna share? You have any publications out there? Anything you wanna, do you wanna tease the audience with?
Steven: Yeah, I mean, we've got one. Well, yeah, so we've got one we're doing. It's basically the concept is, in order to prioritize your crack like flaws, you need to look at burst pressure and fatigue, which is not, not a surprising result. We all know it anyway. But we're just kind of, we're packaging it in a way that we think is pretty interesting.
32:12
Steven: It turns out that sometimes the worst, if you were to take a bunch of flaws, and you were to rank them by burst pressure, and then you were to then calculate the remaining life for all those, and then you wanted to rank them by fatigue life, the worst one that burst pressure is not always the one that has the lowest fatigue life.
Rhett: I could see that.
Steven: So, it's possible. Yeah, particularly in lines that have significant decline in pressure cycling.
Yeah, I mean, if you got really light pressure cycling, it's, you don't have to worry about it or even think about it. But it's interesting to see, we looked at it for all the models, not all of them, Met 8, Coral-Ast, Modified Lug Seeking, Rajinum and happens in all of them. And so, you know, just kind of looking at the different cases when it might occur, you know, how that might affect, you know, how you might excavate or either excavate or do a more detailed assessment on the crack or something.
Chris: Will you also be presenting?
Steven: Yes.
Chris: Excellent. So, people will be able to find you.
Steven: Yeah.
Rhett: So, there you go. Our audience, you can come and cheer on Stephen John while he's in the middle of his presentation at IPC 2024 this year. And if you get a chance,
33:18
Rhett: walk up, shake his hand and tell him that he was made famous on pipeline things, he would definitely appreciate it. So, on that note, Stephen, John, I want to thank you for joining us in this episode. We definitely appreciate having you on and hope it won't be your last time.
33:32
Rhett: So, we'll see, depends on how quickly he gets out of here. To our audience, we want to say thanks. We look forward to seeing many of you at IPC 2024. And thanks for joining us and see you again in a couple of weeks. Cheers.
This episode of Pipeline Things is sponsored by D2 Integrity and executively produced by Sarah Roberts. We'd like to thank the Westin Hotel Memorial for allowing us to use their space. And hey,
I have a horse named Mayo. Sometimes Mayo nays.
