Obviously, specifications serve an important function in the design and fabrication of custom engineered FRP equipment. Most are written by knowledgeable engineers who are tasked with ensuring that the equipment fabricated to these specifications performs well and has a long lifespan. Yet sometimes, specifications are not followed during the design or fabrication stages (or followed closely enough), and if noncompliance is discovered, not rectified sufficiently for complete compliance. Usually the FRP fabricator gets blamed, but other stakeholders suffer as well, such as project engineers, third party inspectors, installation contractors, and end users.
Not enforcing or complying with specifications can give the entire industry a black eye when FRP equipment fails as a result. In a corrosive environment, a failure can cause serious environmental and public relations issues and possibly injure people. Specifications should be taken seriously to help ensure these problems never occur.
Here’s a partial list of some of the more common places where FRP equipment specifications are not met:
- Insufficient Liner Thickness
- Insufficient Structural Thickness
- Incorrect Resin Selection
- Insufficient Tee & Flange Tabbing
- Poor Secondary Bonding Procedures
- Excess Void Content
- FOD (Foreign Object Debris) in Laminate
- Incorrect Physical Dimensions
- Lack of Coupon Retention
- Improper Installation
- Insufficient Quantity or Non-FRP Specific Supports
With that in mind, sometimes a deviation from specification is in the best interest of the project. This can happen because a boilerplate spec was written for unknown future projects, and therefore not tailored to the circumstances of any one project. In such a case, the specification should describe a procedure to be followed for examination and approval of the appropriate spec change.
On any project, there are many different ways specifications can fail to be met, and some can lead to serious consequences and high repair costs. For more information, contact Diamond Fiberglass or Diamond Services.
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