Inspection, Assessment, and Integrity Management
What you must understand
Integrity management ties inspection to risk. Candidates should know risk-based inspection (RBI), the plan-do-check-act cycle, and the role of baselining, scheduled surveys (general visual, close visual, NDT), and specialized techniques: ultrasonic wall-thickness mapping, flooded member detection, MPI/DPI for welds, and CP potential surveys. Understand how inspection findings feed remaining-life assessment, fitness-for-service evaluation, and repair decisions.
Know the regulatory and standards context at a conceptual level (classification society and flag-state surveys, integrity management requirements) and the data that must be recorded: location, method, readings, anomalies, and trends. Trending matters - a single reading is less meaningful than a corrosion rate derived from repeated measurements. Understand anomaly classification (e.g., structural, coating, CP) and the escalation path when limits are exceeded.
Traps in questions
A common trap is treating one inspection as sufficient - integrity management is continuous and trend-based. Another is confusing detection with sizing: a method may find a defect without quantifying it. Questions may also test that inspection intervals should shorten when degradation accelerates.
Worked example / rule of thumb
Wall-thickness data: 12.5 mm at year 0, 11.9 mm at year 5 → rate ≈ 0.12 mm/yr. At a 6.0 mm minimum allowable, remaining life ≈ (11.9 − 6.0)/0.12 ≈ 49 years - but if the rate is accelerating, shorten the inspection interval. Rule of thumb: always compute a rate and a remaining life before judging fitness.