Brad Gresham, a graduate of Emory University, is the South Region Business Development Director for Xylem Inc’s Wachs Water Services and Pure Technologies, Ltd. Brad has worked in the water industry over 20 years with experience in the development and implementation of water sector asset management condition assessment solutions. He has participated in multiple National and Regional conference presentations and technical sessions throughout the United States focusing primarily in the southeast region.

I have given presentations at almost every water related conference in the southeast United States as well as technical sessions and continuing education classes.

Integrating Valve Inspections with Pipeline Inspections

Pipeline condition assessments continue to gain in popularity as many reliable tools and technologies have proven reliable, while even more technologies continue to be introduced to the pipeline industry.  Along the same line, greater awareness and focus has been placed on the importance of pipeline “control valve” reliability to ensure the success of pipeline outages and inspections.

Despite these two critical assets getting so much more attention, the practice of proactively integrating the two inspections has not advanced as much as each individually.  For example, performing Level I Valve Assessments to ensure valves are accessible and operable prior pipeline inspections is still too often overlooked.   Furthermore, if a Level I Assessment reveals there is a problem with the gearing of the valve, whether it be a horizontal double disc gate valve, vertically oriented external geared gate valve, or a butterfly valve actuator, owners often fail to perform a Level II Assessment on the valve gearing or gear box to identify the problem and correct it in advance of the shutdown, complicating or compromising the pipeline inspection.  Instead, and often, the size of the shutdown is expanded, and the problematic control valve just replaced, wasting tens of thousands and often hundreds of thousands of dollars.  Lastly, while pipelines are shut down, it is the opportune time to perform Level III Condition Assessment and any corrective maintenance on the butterfly valve discs and seats, or gate valve gates and tracks during pipeline inspections.  This level of integration saves the owner significant maintenance and capital improvement program dollars that can be allocated to additional asset management program work.

This presentation will demonstrate the tools and technologies used to assess critical pipelines and valves, with a focus on integrating valve assessment and rehabilitation with pipeline assessment at the appropriate timing to minimize problems with attempting and sustaining pipeline outages, and while maximizing the time focused on assessing pipeline inspections and assessments.