Welding, Corrosion and Inspection
Welding Practice
API 579 Fitness-for-Service of Piping, Vessels and Tanks
Deciding whether damaged equipment can stay in service, using the assessment levels in API 579.
- Duration
- 5 days
- Contact hours
- 30
- Level
- Intermediate
- Fee from
- On enquiry
Overview
Equipment comes out of inspection with a flaw and the question is always the same: run, repair or replace. Answering it by judgement is how plants either shut down work that was safe or keep running something that was not. This standard replaces the judgement with an assessment, and it is layered deliberately, from a conservative screening any competent engineer can run to a detailed analysis that needs a specialist. The week covers the common assessments in the order a plant meets them, works each on real geometry and real readings, and is honest about where a Level 1 result should send you upward rather than let you sign.
Who should attend
Integrity, reliability and mechanical engineers, senior inspectors, plant engineers making run or repair decisions, and consultants supporting turnaround scopes.
What you will be able to do
- Choose the assessment level that suits the flaw and the data available.
- Run general and local metal loss assessments on real measurements.
- Assess pitting, blisters, laminations, weld misalignment and shell distortion.
- Carry out a crack like flaw assessment, and understand what it rests on.
- Set a remaining life and an inspection interval from the result.
How it is taught
Short input, then work, across 5 days of roughly 6 teaching hours each. Exercises run on situations delegates bring rather than on a case study written for a different organisation. Cohorts are capped so that everybody is asked something.
Available as classroom, live online, in house.
Programme outline
Day 1
The framework
- Levels 1, 2 and 3, and what each demands
- Data quality, and the assessment it will support
- Where fitness for service sits beside the inspection codes
Day 2
Metal loss
- General metal loss and thickness profiles
- Local thin areas
- Remaining strength factor
- Worked examples on vessels, piping and tanks
Day 3
Pitting and laminations
- Pitting couples and grading
- Blisters and hydrogen damage
- Laminations, and when they matter
Day 4
Geometry and crack like flaws
- Weld misalignment and out of roundness
- Crack like flaw assessment and the failure assessment diagram
- Fracture toughness, and the problem of estimating it
Day 5
Using the answer
- Remaining life and monitoring
- What to document, and for whom
- Communicating a marginal result without losing the argument
What you leave with
- Completed assessments on your own equipment data.
- A decision record showing the basis of a run or repair call.
- A route for escalating an assessment when Level 1 fails.
Dates and fees
| Dates | Location | Format | Fee |
|---|---|---|---|
| 23 to 27 November 2026 | Cape Town, South Africa | Classroom | R15,000 |
| 30 November 2026 to 4 December 2026 | Cairo, Egypt | Classroom | US$1,500 |
| 7 to 11 December 2026 | Gaborone, Botswana | Classroom | R15,000 |
| 14 to 18 December 2026 | Durban, South Africa | Classroom | R15,000 |
Fees are per delegate and cover tuition, all programme materials and the certificate. Travel, accommodation and visas are arranged by the delegate. Registration closes two weeks before a programme starts.
Certificate
A GATI certificate recording what was attended, issued after the programme has run and attendance has been taken. Attending at least 80 per cent of the days earns a certificate of completion; attending less earns a certificate of attendance stating exactly what was attended. Every certificate carries a code that anybody can check against GATI's own record.
It records participation. and GATI does not claim one it does not hold.