Fracture Mechanics and Toughness Testing in Sour Environment (in-situ)

Subsea pipelines and equipment used in the oil & gas industry are often exposed to complex environmental conditions including sour service gas and liquids, such as wet H2S in combination with various levels of CO2. This causes deterioration to pipelines and creates enormous industry-wide challenges in predicting and preventing potential pipeline cracking and failure. 

Although there are well-stablished methods for fracture toughness testing one of the challenges the oil and gas industry faces is the lack of specific material data and knowledge on the behavior of pipeline materials under sour service conditions. 

Element combines years of experience in corrosion testing for the energy sector  with state-of-the-art laboratory testing and simulation facilities to perform in-situ fracture toughness tests in highly corrosive environments including elevated and sub-ambient temperatures. These tests will give you results closer to the real material behavior in the application.

Dedicated sour service fracture toughness testing

We can design and characterize dedicated test procedures for fracture toughness behavior of carbon steels and corrosion-resistant alloys in sour service. This guarantees reliable and appropriate data, a critical input parameter for your Fitness For Service (FFS) and Engineering Critical Assessment (ECA) analyses.

Our fracture toughness and fatigue testing provides you with highly relevant materials data for the determination of allowable level of defects in pipelines and other equipment used in sour service environments: 

• Mechanical fracture toughness J-R and CTOD curves on SENT, SENB and CT specimen
• Fatigue Crack Growth Rate on SENB and CT specimen
• Slow Strain Rate Tensile

The results will help, improve your design to reduce the likelihood of future failure, and save you time and money.

The Element advantage

From test results and data under realistic service conditions, we can carry out ECA and FFS analyses to confirm the capability of a component in sour service environment to provide the expected service even in the presence of flaws.

For more information about our fracture toughness testing and fracture mechanics services in sour environments, or to speak with an expert, contact us today.