Pneumatic Testing of Piping: Managing the Hazards for High Energy Tests

Abstract

Pneumatic pressure testing is used extensively during construction of LNG plants to avoid the problems that can be caused by water that may be left in a piping system (particularly in valves) if hydrotesting was performed. Due to the much greater compressibility of gas, there is significantly more energy (and thus risk) associated with a pneumatic test than with a hydrostatic test. A major gas project safely conducted numerous pneumatic tests with stored energies of up to 6,675 MJ. Observing a commonly used limit of 270 MJ would have resulted in hundreds of additional closure welds. This paper discusses practical aspects of performing pneumatic testing, the risk mitigations put in place and present two calculation methods that can be used to check whether exclusion zones for blast wave pressure are adequate for fragment throw.