The Biennial Joint Technical Meeting (JTM) on Pipeline Research brings together members and researchers from the United States-based Pipeline Research Council International (PRCI), the European Pipeline Research Group and the Australian Pipeline Industry Association Research and Standards Committee (APIA RSC). This year, senior members from the newly-established Energy Pipelines CRC (CEPCRC) also attended the event. The meeting is designed to facilitate the technical exchange of research programs outputs, share member experiences and issues, and plan research focus areas for the coming period.

The JTM included 30 papers presented in nine technical categories and an additional eight workshop sessions on research needs, issues and opportunities. The technical categories included:

  • Line pipe properties and testing;
  • Human factors, workforce development and knowledge retention;
  • Pipeline integrity;
  • SCC sizing and assessment;
  • Advanced design and materials;
  • Girth welding properties, performance and assessment;
  • Corrosion protection, assessment and management;
  • Offshore/subsea design and integrity; and,
  • Mechanical damage.

The workshop streams, designed to identify research gaps and opportunities in research, were consistent with the technical presentation categories. The workshop sessions aimed to achieve a unified strategic plan for global industry research requirements; identifying research priorities and mapping how the organisations could work collaboratively to achieve the project objectives.

Twenty representatives of the Australian pipeline industry attended the JTM and many of these people played key roles in the presentations and workshops. Presentations from Australia included:

  • Valerie Linton (EPCRC)– Education of pipeline engineers
  • Jan Hayes (Australian National University) – Organisational safety: a new research venture for the Australian pipeline industry
  • John Piper (OneSteel) – Design and specification of line pipe and line pipe steels for weldability, constructability and integrity
  • Dominic Cuiuri (University of Wollongong) – Real time monitoring of heat input in manual Exx10 root pass welds
  • Ajit Godbole (University of Wollongong) – The effect of uncertainties in hydrostatic test fluid temperature measurements on the capability to detect leaks in pipelines.

Stephen Ohl, Jim McDonald, and Leigh Fletcher acted as co-chairs for various presentation sessions, while Valerie Linton, Jan Hayes and Peter Tuft acted as co-chairs in the workshop sessions.

For the second JTM running, a feature of the attendee list was the four young Australian pipeline engineers who were awarded scholarships to attend the JTM and to participate in the following two-week study tour of North American gas and pipeline related facilities. The scholarships were funded by APIA and the Australian Gas Industry Trust. Two of the EPCRC researchers also joined the study tour. The participants in the study tour were Josh Wickham (GPA Engineering), Clayton Warner (Fyfe Pty Ltd), Thomas Schambron (BlueScope Steel), Douglas Woods (OSD Pipelines), Nicolas Coniglio (University of Adelaide) and Cheng Lu (University of Wollongong). A full report on their visit will be included in the October edition of The Australian Pipeliner.

All of this hard work could not go unrewarded, and delegates and partners enjoyed a number of very interesting and enjoyable functions at the end of each day. In particular, the welcome function saw the attendees enjoying cocktails in the Pavilion Room in the world-renowned Fairmont Hotel, which sits proudly atop Nob Hill in the centre of San Francisco. The partners spent a memorable day visiting, amongst other things, the famous Fisherman’s Wharf and the prison island of Alcatraz. The conference dinner, held in the Crown Room on the 24th floor of the Fairmont Hotel, provided a special treat for delegates and partners when they were provided with the opportunity to view San Francisco from height and watch the sun go down over the Golden Gate Bridge.

The JTM was deemed a great success by all of the participants and APIA’s thanks go to Cliff Johnson, the President of PRCI, and his team of organisers, especially Mary Untiedt, for orchestrating what was a memorable few days in San Francisco. It is now Australia’s turn to host the JTM, which will be held in Sydney in April/May of 2013 and will be hosted by APIA and the Research and Standards Committee.