Martin Blackman

Martin helps clients keep on top of their pressure piping and equipment integrity issues via stress analysis, FEA and fitness for service. He is the author of various articles, an ASME paper and software including the Salad post-processor for CAESAR II and web apps on this site. In a former life he played whizzbang lead guitar, but now he just plays old albums..

How to restore CAESAR II backups

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This video shows you how to restore CAESAR II files using the automated backup feature. Also a couple of tips and tricks to find lost files.

 

How to show company name in CAESAR II

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Introduction When using CAESAR II with network licensing, your company name does not automatically appear in the output reports generated by the program. Instead a message saying ‘Edit company name in <system>\company.txt’ is shown in headers: The same message appears at the foot of the main program window (the initials SPLM stand for Smartplant License … Read more

G’day, I’m a hoop stress engineer!

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inside of pipe

For much of my career I have been involved in pipe stress analysis in some way, starting with Pipeplus by Algor, moving on to Triflex and then to CAESAR II. After I had a few years of part-time stressing under my belt, I landed a pipe stress role on a three-platform greenfields project in the Timor … Read more

‘Quick and Dirty’ FFS of Fittings

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Assessing fitness for service of pipe fittings is tricky. Whilst we’d encourage you to assess them carefully, what about when you just want to know if you should expend the effort to do more detailed analysis or FEA ? Here is a simple approach that can sometimes be employed when you need a first pass … Read more

‘Hot’ sustained stress – method comparison

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compressor station piping

In the past few years there has been an increased focus on the so-called ‘hot sustained’ stress in piping system analyses. The ASME B31.3 2006 edition clarified that Sustained stress requirements must be met for all operating conditions of a piping system. There had always been practitioners whose view was that any stress due to change in temperature should … Read more

B31.3 Code Issue – Non-conservative Sustained Stress

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I would like to highlight an issue in ASME B31.3 that’s been sitting there underneath most of our noses for several years. Depending on your interpretation of the Code (or that of your pipe stress software) this can result in significant under-prediction of sustained and occasional bending and torsional stresses at reducing intersections. [Edit March 2017: this … Read more

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