Recently, R-TECH Materials supported a key Scotland based petrochemical client during a major turnaround carrying out onsite metallurgical replication of various pipework. Replication is an adaptable tool that can be used for the identification and characterisation of a wide range of metallurgical degradation mechanisms and defects. In essence this technique enables a carbon copy of the underlying material microstructure, without requiring the removal of a physical sample.

R-TECH were onsite for a period of 4 weeks for the major outage, acquiring in excess of 400 replicas from a variety of materials including carbon steels, low alloy steels, austenitic stainless steels and nickel-based alloys, most of which had been operating in the creep regime. R-TECH assessed the replicas to identify carbide degradation in the carbon and low alloys steel components and sigmatisation and carbide precipitation in the austenitic components. In addition, the replicas were assessed for creep damage. Subsequently, the microstructural characteristics were compared with industry accepted grading systems for carbon steels with the aim of quantifying the level of damage encountered. Further, the microstructural characteristics observed for the austenitic materials were compared with the grading system developed by R-TECH through an 8-year long research project for the development of a structural integrity remaining life model for austenitic stainless steels.

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