Singapore Seminar | Identifying Hidden Threats to
Critical Assets with Acoustic Emission

Overview

Tanks and pressure vessels remain among the most critical assets within Singapore’s petrochemical, chemical manufacturing, energy, pharmaceutical, marine, and terminal storage industries. As facilities operate under increasing pressure to maximize reliability, maintain regulatory compliance, and optimize asset life, operators face ongoing challenges associated with corrosion, cracking, fatigue damage, stress corrosion cracking, hydrogen-related degradation, and weld-related defects. Detecting these degradation mechanisms before they compromise safety and operational performance remains a key objective of modern asset integrity management programmes.

While conventional non-destructive testing methods continue to play an important role in periodic inspections, they are often limited to localized areas and may require equipment shutdown or significant inspection preparation. In today’s risk-based inspection (RBI) environment, operators increasingly seek technologies that can provide condition-based information and support informed maintenance decisions while minimizing operational disruption.

This seminar will introduce acoustic emission testing (AET), an advanced non-intrusive monitoring technology capable of detecting and locating active damage mechanisms while assets remain in service or under test conditions. By capturing transient stress waves generated by active events such as crack growth, active corrosion processes, leakage, fibre breakage, and other structural changes, AET provides real-time information on asset behaviour that cannot be obtained through conventional inspection methods alone.

Participants will gain practical insights into how AET can complement existing inspection programmes, support RBI strategies, and strengthen overall asset integrity management frameworks. Applications for aboveground storage tanks and pressure vessels will be discussed, together with industry case studies demonstrating how AET has been used to optimize inspection intervals, prioritize maintenance activities, reduce outage requirements, and enhance confidence in operational decision-making.

Join AET’s technical specialists as they share practical experiences, lessons learned, and industry applications demonstrating how acoustic emission technology can support safer, smarter, and more efficient management of critical assets in Singapore’s increasingly performance-driven industrial environment.

Who Should Attend?

• Asset Integrity Engineers & Managers
• Inspection and Corrosion Engineers & Managers
• Reliability and Maintenance Engineers & Managers
• Plant Managers and Operations Personnel
• HSE Professionals
• Tank Farm and Terminal Operators
• Pressure Vessel Owners and Inspectors
• Engineering Consultants and Asset Owners

Key Takeaways

• Understand common degradation mechanisms affecting tanks and pressure vessels.
• Learn the principles and capabilities of AET.
• Discover how AET identifies active defects and hidden damage.
• Explore industry case studies and practical applications.
• Improve asset integrity, operational reliability, and safety performance through risk-based inspection and condition assessment strategies.