Engineers and pipeline owners routinely recycle their favourite Technical Specification for Pipeline Construction each time it is required for a new pipeline project. These ‘favourite’ specifications include sections on each aspect of pipeline construction, including welding and non-destructive testing.

Many years ago when the engineering, and in some cases the owner companies, employed people who were technically competent in radiography and non-destructive testing, and at a time when the welding and non-destructive testing standards often lagged behind the developing materials and inspection technologies, this may have been appropriate.

In 2008, practically no engineering or owning company employs people qualified to specify welding and non-destructive testing requirements for high pressure pipelines designed and constructed to AS2885 – notwithstanding AS2885’s requirement that people engaged in designing, constructing and operating high pressure pipelines are competent.

It is against this background of rapidly changing materials, welding and non-destructive testing technologies, and rapidly diminishing employment of competent materials, welding and non-destructive testing engineers that the Australian Standards Committee ME 38 set about developing AS2885.2 (Welding). The Sub Committee (ME38.2), which is responsible for producing AS2885.2, has a broad membership of experienced people from steel makers, pipe makers, designers, NDT professionals, welding engineers, welding inspectors, metallurgists, pipeline constructors and owner operators.

The Committee’s intent was that Part 2 would be a single and sufficient standard for production welding and quality inspection for high pressure pipelines, allowing engineers and owners to raise the technical quality of their Technical Specification for Pipeline Construction by specifying welding and non-destructive testing compliance with AS2885.2.

It is disturbing to continue to see Technical Specifications that give lip service to AS2885.2 (by specifying compliance) and then proceed to nominate a host of specific requirements (many of which are superseded by technology) contradict the standard, fail to address critical quality issues, force compliance with unnecessarily costly requirements, result in incorrectly qualified welding procedures, or which are simply wrong and can result in non-compliance with AS2885.2.

These specification writers have generally failed to maintain their professional competence by reading, understanding and commenting on public comment draft revisions to the standard, and hence perpetuate requirements that may not deliver cost effective and safe pipelines. The committee values the feedback from public comment to ensure that we as an industry have the best standard possible. However, this feedback is almost non-existent and yet constructors and owners are very forthcoming to seek immediate committee clarification when a dispute arises during a project as a result of code ambiguities.

It is important that the Australian industry is able to take advantage of the very significant improvement in welding and non-destructive testing requirements embodied in AS2885.2 – 2007. To do this, the specifier must:

• Nominate welding and non-destructive testing comply with AS2885.2;
• Ensure competent personnel requirements are nominated in the specification, AS2885.2 specifies the minimum requirements only;
• Read and understand the requirements of AS2885.2 and the referenced documents;
• Nominate the specific design requirements for the pipeline that will influence the development of compliant weld and non-destructive testing procedures and their qualification. In particular nominate location specific requirements identified in the Safety Management Study (AS2885.1);
• Nominate the defect acceptance criteria to be applied to the pipeline to achieve the quality and cost objectives for the pipeline under construction;
• Nominate record keeping objectives for the project; and,
• Manage the contractors to achieve compliance with AS2885.2 through all phases of construction and records delivery.

A great deal of effort by experienced and qualified committee members has gone into developing the Australian Standard for high pressure pipeline welding. The Standard permits the use of the latest welding and inspection technology (for example mechanised welding and automated ultrasonic testing), and it recognises the results of the very extensive research undertaken by the pipeline industry over the past 25 years (and more recently directed toward high strength steel, defect acceptance criteria, and inspection technologies). The standard permits acceptance of longer discontinuities by using Tier 2, than allowed with workmanship acceptance criteria (Tier 1), however Tier 2 is seldom called up in specifications, even though this acceptance criteria is backed up by extensive full scale testing, has more technical merit than workmanship criteria and knowledge that the joint integrity may be compromised by an unnecessary repair.

It is a great loss to the industry that engineers and owners continue to recycle outdated (often from the seventies) welding and inspection technical specifications because of ignorance.