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Sour Service

The Industry Challenge:

Oilfield equipment in sour service, where hydrogen sulfide is present, is susceptible to hydrogen embrittlement and stress corrosion cracking.

Complex operating conditions including multi-axis and cyclic loads make it difficult to predict how the effects of the sour environment could affect the pressure and structural integrity of the equipment.

Small-scale material tests, which are used to evaluate material performance in sour environments, typically do not reproduce the complexity of the loading environment; such as, multi-axis or cyclic loads, while the material is exposed to the corrosive environment.

Furthermore, small‑scale material tests do not replicate the surface finish of the manufactured product which can affect corrosion rates and crack initiation.

In addition, small specimen sizes reduce the likelihood that the specimen has a representative number of deleterious inclusions that could initiate cracking.

Therefore, to increase the likelihood that equipment tests in sour conditions are representative of real-world performance, full-scale equipment components and assemblies should be tested.

However, most sour testing facilities can only accommodate coupon-scale samples or can only apply simplified loading conditions while exposing the equipment to the sour environment.

How We Help:

C-FER conducts full-scale sour testing of equipment in a Special Environments Laboratory (SEL) which provides secondary containment for the testing system so that unplanned releases from the specimen or test set up can be managed safely.

The SEL is large enough that custom‑built testing systems such as load frames and pressure vessels to reproduce the required load, temperature and chemical environment can be fully contained to provide a safe testing environment.

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