High-Performance Bolting Technology for
Offshore Oil and Natural Gas Operations
Committee on Connector Reliability for Offshore Oil and Natural Gas
Operations
National Materials and Manufacturing Board
Division on Engineering and Physical Sciences
National Academy of Engineering
A Consensus Study Report of
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This activity was supported by Contract No. 10003191 with the Department of the Interior. Any opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this publication and do not necessarily reflect the views of any organization or agency that provided support for the project.
International Standard Book Number-13: 978-0-309-47242-5
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Digital Object Identifier: https://doi.org/10.17226/25032
Cover: The cover plainly depicts a bolted pipe flange in full clarity as an analogy of the state reached by the committee since the start of the study and the initial workshop. This should be compared to the artistic expression on the cover of the workshop proceedings where the nature of the same bolted pipe flange is obscured by shadows, moving light and flickering, also as an analogy. Graphic artist: Erik Svedberg.
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Suggested citation: National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2018. High-Performance Bolting Technology for Offshore Oil and Natural Gas Operations. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. https://doi.org/10.17226/25032.
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COMMITTEE ON CONNECTOR RELIABILITY FOR OFFSHORE OIL AND NATURAL GAS OPERATIONS
ROBERT SCHAFRIK, NAE,1 University of Texas, Arlington, Chair
ROBERT POHANKA, National Nanotechnology Coordination Office (retired), Vice Chair
CLYDE BRIANT, NAE, Brown University
WILLARD CAPEDEVIELLE, Oil Patch Engineering, PLLC
HOMERO CASTANEDA-LOPEZ, Texas A&M University
NANCY COOKE, Arizona State University
THOMAS EAGAR, NAE, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
L. BRUN HILBERT, JR., Exponent
DEREK HORTON, U.S. Naval Research Laboratory
DAVID JOHNSON, NAE, Stevens Institute of Technology
DAVID MATLOCK, NAE, Colorado School of Mines
JYOTIRMOY MAZUMDER, NAE, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
ROGER MCCARTHY, NAE, McCarthy Engineering
JOHN SCULLY, University of Virginia
POL SPANOS, NAE, Rice University
NEIL THOMPSON, Det Norske Vertas (DNV GL)
Staff
ERIK SVEDBERG, Senior Program Officer, Study Director
JAMES LANCASTER, Director, National Materials and Manufacturing Board
NEERAJ P. GORKHALY, Associate Program Officer
HEATHER LOZOWSKI, Financial Associate
JOSEPH PALMER, Senior Project Assistant
HENRY KO, Research Associate
ALTON D. ROMIG, JR., NAE, Executive Officer, National Academy of Engineering
PROCTOR REID, Director, National Academy of Engineering Program Office
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NOTE: See Appendix M, Disclosure of Conflict of Interest.
1 Member, National Academy of Engineering.
NATIONAL MATERIALS AND MANUFACTURING BOARD
BEN WANG, Georgia Institute of Technology, Chair
RODNEY C. ADKINS, NAE,1 IBM Corporate Strategy (retired)
JIM C. I. CHANG, National Cheng Kung University, Tainan, Taiwan
LEO CHRISTODOULOU, Boeing, Inc.
THOMAS M. DONNELLAN, Applied Research Laboratory
STEPHEN FORREST, NAS2/NAE, University of Michigan
ERICA FUCHS, Carnegie Mellon University
JACK HU, NAE, University of Michigan
THERESA KOTANCHECK, Evolved Analytics LLC
DAVID LARBALESTIER, Florida State University
ROBERT MILLER, IBM Almaden Research Center
EDWARD MORRIS, NCDMM, NAMII
NICHOLAS A. PEPPAS, NAE/NAM,3 University of Texas, Austin
TRESA M. POLLOCK, NAE, University of California, Santa Barbara
F. STAN SETTLES, University of Southern California
HAYDN WADLEY, University of Virginia
STEVE ZINKLE, NAE, University of Tennessee, Knoxville
Staff
JAMES LANCASTER, Director
ERIK B. SVEDBERG, Senior Program Officer
HEATHER LOZOWSKI, Financial Associate
NEERAJ P. GORKHALY, Associate Program Officer
JOSEPH PALMER, Senior Project Assistant
HENRY KO, Research Assistant
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1 Member, National Academy of Engineering.
2 Member, National Academy of Sciences.
3 Member, National Academy of Medicine.
Acknowledgments
This Consensus Study Report was reviewed in draft form by individuals chosen for their diverse perspectives and technical expertise. The purpose of this independent review is to provide candid and critical comments that will assist the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine in making each published report as sound as possible and to ensure that it meets the institutional standards for quality, objectivity, evidence, and responsiveness to the study charge. The review comments and draft manuscript remain confidential to protect the integrity of the deliberative process.
We wish to thank the following individuals for their review of this report:
Dianne Chong, NAE,1 Boeing Research and Technology (retired),
Millard S. Firebaugh, NAE, U.S. Navy (retired) and University of Maryland, College Park,
Dana A. Powers, NAE, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission,
Jan C. Schilling, NAE, General Electric Aviation (retired),
Brian Somerday, Southwest Research Institute,
Glen Stevick, Berkeley Engineering and Research, Inc.,
Alan Turnbull, National Physical Laboratory, and
Joseph A. Yura, NAE, University of Texas, Austin.
___________________
1 Member, National Academy of Engineering.
Although the reviewers listed above provided many constructive comments and suggestions, they were not asked to endorse the conclusions or recommendations of this report nor did they see the final draft before its release. The review of this report was overseen by Aziz I. Asphahani, NAE, QuesTek Innovations, LLC. He was responsible for making certain that an independent examination of this report was carried out in accordance with the standards of the National Academies and that all review comments were carefully considered. Responsibility for the final content rests entirely with the authoring committee and the National Academies.
The committee also thanks the guest speakers at its meetings, who added to the members’ understanding of bolting technology for offshore oil and natural gas operations and the issues surrounding it:
Bruce Craig, President, Metcorr,
Carl Szczechowski, Technical Lead for Physical Oceanography, Oceanography Department, Naval Oceanographic Office,
Chris Johnson, Director of Engineering, NOV,
Holly Hopkins, Senior Policy Advisor, American Petroleum Institute,
Michael Demkowicz, Associate Professor, Materials Science and Engineering Texas A&M University,
Narasi Sridhar, Program Director, Materials Technology Development Section, DNV GL,
Ramòn San Pedro, P.E. Stress Engineering Services,
Rob Turlak, Manager, Subsea Engineering and Well Control Systems, Transocean,
Roger Boyer, NASA Johnson Space Center,
S. Camille Peres, Assistant Professor, Environmental and Occupational Health, Texas A&M University Health Science Center,
Steve Eckman, Drilling Operations Manager, Anadarko Petroleum Corporation,
Terry Lechinger, Stress Engineering Services, and
Vinod Veedu, PhD Director of Strategic Initiatives, Oceanit Laboratories, Inc.
The committee gratefully acknowledges information provided by experts from the oil and gas industry:
Brian Healy, PhD, DNV GL,
Jim Raney, Anadarko Petroleum Corporation,
Ken Bhalla, PhD, Stress Engineering Services,
Les Smiles, Anadarko Petroleum Corporation,
Lester Burgess, U.S. Bolt Manufacturing,
Partha Sharma, DNV GL,
Pascal Berthaud, Cameron, a Schlumberger company, and
Pat Boster, Stress Engineering Services,
Tim Haeberle, Chief Consulting Engineer, Baker Hughes (formerly GE Oil and Gas),
Tina Panontin, Chief Engineer, NASA Ames Research Center (retired).
Tom Goin, President, U.S. Bolt Manufacturing, and
Trent Fleece, BOP Team Lead, BP.
In addition, the committee thanks the experts who attended the preceding workshop. Their discussions were instrumental in allowing the committee to achie1ve a balanced understanding of the field. The committee also wants to thank the companies that provided valuable information to the committee such as Stress Engineering, BP, NOV, Cameron, and DNV GL. The excellent support of the National Academies staff is especially appreciated. Special thanks go to Erik Svedberg, Neeraj Gorkhaly, Henry Ko, and Joe Palmer, who were indispensable to our accomplishing this study. We also thank NAE’s Al Romig and Proctor Reid for their help getting the study launched and for their continued support throughout the study process.
Robert Schafrik, Chair, and Robert Pohanka, Vice Chair Committee on Connector Reliability for Offshore Oil and Natural Gas Operations
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Preface
Tremendous oil and gas resources exist in the continental shelf and are becoming accessible with advances in drilling technology. This has sharply increased the number of drilling rigs at work in deep water environments, primarily within the Gulf of Mexico. The large oil spill due to the Deepwater Horizon accident has focused more attention on preventing oil releases into the ocean. In addition to the Deepwater Horizon environmental release, there have been several near misses due to bolt failures over the past 15 years. Even though in-service fastener failures (bolts and connectors) are rare and have not led to a major release of oil, eliminating or further reducing the possibility of a failure has become a priority for both industry and government. A summary of selected subsea bolt failures is compiled in Appendix E. The emphasis is on those fasteners that hold together critical pieces of safety equipment, particularly blow out preventers (BOP), and those that secure the pressure boundary in risers.
This report of the Committee on Connector Reliability for Offshore Oil and Natural Gas Operations is the second of two major deliverables requested by the sponsor, the Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Safety and Environment Enforcement (BSEE). The first deliverable was a proceedings of a workshop that was held in Washington, D.C., on April 10-11, 2017.1 The goal of the Workshop on Bolting Reliability for Offshore Oil and Natural Gas Operations was to develop an
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1 National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, Bolting Reliability for Offshore Oil and Natural Gas Operations: Proceedings of a Workshop, The National Academy Press, Washington, D.C., 2017.
understanding of the outstanding issues (materials, design loads, coatings, corrosion protection, failure prediction and prevention, and quality management), associated with these previous bolt failures and to discuss possible paths for reducing risks associated with bolts used in subsea oil and gas operations.
This current report comprises the second deliverable. The committee’s work built upon and extended the information developed during the workshop. The detailed statement of task for this study is contained in its entirety in Appendix A. There were eight tasks requested of the committee:
- Task 1: Assessment of the critical drill-through equipment fastener systems and the appropriateness of materials and coatings selected for incorporation into fasteners, for optimal performance for subsea environment operating conditions.
- Task 2: Analyze the role that design issues and human-systems interaction play in the entire lifecycle of the bolts.
- Task 3: Suggest options for improving safety of offshore drilling and pipeline operations as related to the use of fasteners for critical drill through equipment components like the lower marine riser package (LMRP) and pipeline fasteners.
- Task 4: Evaluate the performance of fastener systems currently in use, including the process of manufacturing, corrosion protection, installation, maintenance and inspection processes associated with fastener systems.
- Task 5: Assess the subsea environmental effects on the mechanical properties of bolts and corrosion resistance.
- Task 6: Evaluate the impact of cathodic protection systems on fastener performance in a subsea environment.
- Task 7: Identify the similarities and differences in industry standards related to the design, material specification for strength, hardness, coatings, corrosion resistance performance in atmospheric as well as subsea application conditions, cathodic protection, performance and maintenance requirements as related to fastener systems worldwide.
- Task 8: Identify ideas and concepts taken from industries outside of oil and gas which can be integrated into the offshore oil and natural gas community to effect improvements on safety and environmental protection.
The mapping of these tasks to the chapter/section in the report where the task is addressed is presented in Appendix B. All the above tasks were performed, except for Task 7 which requested “Identification of the similarities and differences in industry standards. “Appendix H contains a summary and brief explanation of the most commonly used bolting regulations and standards, including the pertinent federal regulations; industry standards, specifications, and recommended
practices from API and ASTM; NACE Materials Requirements; NORSOK materials standard; and API flange bolt design specifications. Analyzing the similarities and differences in these standards was beyond the capability of the committee to perform in the timeframe of the study. BSEE has commissioned Argonne National Laboratory (ANL) to perform this task.2
In line with its statement of task, the committee did not make recommendations for actions that BSEE should take, but did provide a number of options that, if taken, would likely improve the reliability of subsea bolting. The committee further provided recommendations to the oil and gas industry that do not require regulatory action that would likely improve the reliability of subsea bolting.
The committee found this study to be quite challenging, not only from a technical perspective that involved many disparate disciplines, but also due to difficulty in obtaining requisite data and information on prior failure investigations and specifications/standards that are deemed “proprietary.” The committee needed this information as background material and to more completely assess the reasonableness of the conclusions and recommendations. Because this report is a public document, no proprietary information is included. In a number of cases, the committee was not able to obtain the historical data and information, and thus the conclusions and recommendations in some areas are necessarily generalized. Nonetheless, in areas not deemed proprietary, the committee received extensive cooperation from a number of companies and engineering organizations.
In this report, the terms “fastener,” “bolt,” and “connector” are used to describe threaded components that are used to facilitate assembly and disassembly of offshore equipment. This report does not deal directly with the design of a connection itself.
The role of hydrogen in embrittling fastener materials is the subject of some discussion and analysis in the report. This phenomenon has multiple terms associated with it. The committee choose to standardize on “hydrogen assisted cracking” (HAC). However, this term is not meant to imply that existing cracking must be present to be enhanced by the uptake of hydrogen. Other terms used by different authors to describe the phenomenon include hydrogen embrittlement (HE), hydrogen environment-assisted cracking (HEAC), hydrogen (enhanced ) cracking (HEC), hydrogen induced cracking (HIC), hydrogen-enhanced decohesion (HEDE), and hydrogen-enhanced local plasticity (HELP).
The committee was composed of 16 experts with the following expertise areas: analysis of structural systems, ceramic materials and coatings, corrosion science
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2 Dr. Candi Hudson, Ph.D., Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement, “BSEE Bolts Technical Evaluation Approach,” BSEE-API Meeting, June 22, 2016, https://www.bsee.gov/sites/bsee_prod.opengov.ibmcloud.com/files/tap-technical-assessment-program/api-bsee-june-22-2016-presentation-api-bolting-workgroup.pdf.
and engineering, failure analysis and forensic investigation, human factors, laser processing of materials, marine drilling rig operation, materials for marine environments, metallurgical engineering, nanotechnology, pipeline technology, risk assessment, structural materials, and welding engineering.
The committee met the following six times between February and September 2017:
- The initial meeting was in Washington, D.C., on February 15-16 during which the committee laid out the plan for the study and starting to develop the agenda for the workshop.
- The committee conducted a site visit to Houston, Texas, on March 22-23 to become acquainted with the equipment and fasteners that are the focus of this study. The companies visited are summarized in the Acknowledgements section of the report.
- The workshop was held at the Keck Center of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine in Washington, D.C., on April 10-11. It was well attended by representatives of the oil and gas industry, as well as BSEE personnel. A proceedings of that workshop was published in 2018. Afterwards, the committee met on April 12 in Washington, D.C., to review the key issues raised during the workshop, develop preliminary conclusions and recommendations, and plan the next meeting.
- The fourth committee meeting occurred June 7-8 in Washington, D.C. The committee reviewed the various chapter drafts that had been prepared and had several invited speakers who provided information of interest to the committee. The speakers are listed in the Acknowledgements section of the report.
- The fifth meeting was held at the Arnold and Mabel Beckman Center of the National Academies of Sciences and Engineering in Irvine, California, on August 28-29. The committee reviewed the draft chapters, broke out into working groups by chapter to add to the material in each chapter, then met together to refine the conclusion and recommendations. Several speakers were invited to inform the committee on key topics of interest. The speakers are listed in the Acknowledgements section of the report.
- The sixth and final meeting occurred at the J. Erik Jonsson Conference Center of the National Academy of Sciences in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, on September 27-28. This meeting was totally dedicated to completing the report and gaining committee concurrence on the conclusions and recommendations.
This report has six chapters plus several appendices. Chapter 1 is an introductory chapter that sets the stage for the remainder of the report. Chapter 2 reviews
the critical design factors and requirements for subsea fasteners and summarizes failure modes. Chapter 3 discusses existing fastener standards and specifications and quality assurance options and presents options for improving government oversight of the fastener life cycle. Chapter 4 describes the important role of human factors in preventing fastener failures. Chapter 5 describes research and development opportunities that could advance fastener performance and reliability. Chapter 6 reiterates the key conclusions and recommendations contained in the report; it also contains Summary Recommendations 6.1 and 6.2, which are seen as the options that BSEE and industry can take, respectively, and consists of relevant recommendations from the previous chapters.
Appendices that supplement the material in the main body of the report include the following: Appendix D, a synopsis of the more than 70 years of U.S. subsea oil exploration effort; Appendix E, a synopsis of selected subsea bolt failures; Appendix F, a summary of current activities by the oil and gas industry and BSEE to improve bolting reliability; Appendix G, additional details for the subsea environmental factors discussion of the subsea environmental factors that impact fastener design; Appendix H, a summary of U.S. bolting regulations and standards; Appendix I, details on drilling riser design; Appendix J, a discussion of the different factors that affect bolting preload and safety factor analysis; and Appendix K, a presentation of the different failure modes experienced by threaded fasteners.
Reducing the risks inherent in extracting natural resources from deep-water environments is a challenge equal to exploration in other extreme environments. It requires continuing study, diligence, attention to detail, and incorporation of suitable new technology, the need for which becomes ever greater as industry goes into deeper water environments. As Albert Einstein noted, “we cannot solve our problems with the same level of thinking that created them.”
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Contents
1 THE CHALLENGES OF SUBSEA FASTENER RELIABILITY IMPROVEMENT
Risk Assessment and Management
Report Chapters and Appendixes
2 ASSESSMENT OF CRITICAL SUBSEA BOLTING SYSTEM DESIGN ELEMENTS
Cathodic Protection and Hydrogen Uptake
Options for Improving the Selection of Bolting Material Properties
Regulatory Examples from Other Industries
4 SAFETY CULTURE AND HUMAN SYSTEMS INTEGRATION
Human Systems Integration and Safety Culture
Human Systems Integration and Fasteners
Human Systems Integration in Other Industries and Countries
Gaps in U.S. Human Systems Integration in the Oil and Gas Industry
Human Interactions with Subsea Fasteners
The Human’s Role in Fastener Failures
Improving the Hydrogen-Assisted Cracking Resistance of Bolt Alloys
B Mapping of Statement of Task to Report Chapters
D Brief History of Subsea Oil Exploration
E Selected Subsea Bolt Failures
F Recent Industry and Regulator Response to Critical Subsea Bolt Failures
G Subsea Environmental Factors for Fastener Design
H Bolting Regulations and Standards