An ontological approach increasing the knowledge about equipment ageing including the effects of current transitions

Ageing management of critical equipment is essential for major accident hazard prevention. In European Union, the Seveso Directive explicitly refers to equipment ageing and specific procedures and tools have been developed in some countries to verify the adequacy of ageing management plans. Ageing management requires up-to-date knowledge of damage mechanisms, failure rates, and inspection techniques. Although the energy transition is moving towards innovative and low-impact processes, the issue of equipment ageing remains a concern for the future due to several factors as many existing petroleum industries will be kept operating for years and green fuels will partially use existing plants. The use of digital technologies, such as inspection robots and pervasive sensors, is increasing in order to optimize maintenance costs and extend the useful lifetime of critical equipment. This poses challenges for stakeholders in the establishment, control bodies, and competent authorities, which need to effectively manage knowledge in the face of digital and energy transitions. Ontologies represent a fundamental methodology for organizing and integrating information throughout the equipment life cycle. These are beneficial for activities with high cognitive content such as incident analysis, risk assessment, maintenance management, and inspection planning. This work aims to strengthen an ontology for ageing management by making it able to incorporate emerging digital inspection technologies and damage mechanisms related to green fuels; finally, through the developed web-application, the ontology is available to establishment operators and auditors for the evaluation of the adequacy of ageing management.