Abstract
The oil and gas industries have severe operations conditions, which impose several failures in off-shore equipment. The Flare System is a pipe designed to safely dispose of relieving hydrocarbon gases and liquids during start-up, operational upsets, emergency shutdown, and maintenance activities. This work reported the failure investigation in a pipe of a high-pressure flare system. The pipe has a diameter of 220 mm and 4 mm of thickness, and according to the equipment datasheet, it was made in AISI 316L stainless steel. Two cracks were detected during the previous non-destructive inspection. Those failures were repaired, but another crack was detected after some months. Chemical composition was investigated using optical emission spectroscopy and elemental analysis, and the results are compatible with AISI 316L steel. The microstructure observed by light optical and scanning electron microscopes shows an austenitic matrix with deformation bands. The microhardness measurements and the XRD analysis show the martensite formation in those deformation bands. The tensile properties are in accordance with the standards. The fracture surface was investigated using scanning electron microscopy, the results point to fatigue failure.
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