Article: number of tie-in joints in a piping system

[siamak]

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[msmmd2000]

well Hi siamak,
I work as a mechanical construction engineer for 3.5 years till now, i believe that hydrostatic test is made for testing piping components materials more than it tests the welding joints themselves, so that here it comes with its high importance before handing-over the project. So golden welds shall be limited as much as we can to avoid un-seen defects in the materials of piping components themselves.
About why we do golden welds, it has so many reasons like what u just said, and for example: if we need to test a pipeline with very big length ( maybe 70 KM long), we cannot test the whole length in one time so we divide it to sections to make the hydrostatic testing after we weld flanges on both ends, then cutting the flanges and make the golden weld that it wasnt hydrostatically-tested. and however, the whole materials of the pipelines were hydrostatically-tested even if we have their certificates.
so golden weld doesnt mean that we ignore hydrostatic test of piping components, it means that this specific welding joint ONLY were not hydrostatically-tested
there were many accidents happened in the petroleum field during hydrostatic test like: -----ing for an elbow or flanges due to many non-professional reasons, but during operation: there is no space to get surprised with a ----- in an non-tested elbow or flange, i hope that u got what i mean mate, good luck

[msmmd2000]

if there is shortage of materials, you have to wait till you recieve the materials, then do the hydrostatic testing. maybe the QC manager is stressed to finalize the project in time but it is not a reason to do the job in a bad way that may lead to risk or a bad repetition