Discover how pre-shutdown process diagnostics using gamma scanning and Thermal Neutron (Neu-Scan) reduce risk, shorten downtime, and eliminate surprises.
Turning diagnostic insight into safer, shorter, and more cost-effective shutdowns
Unplanned findings during a plant shutdown are among the most expensive risks faced by refineries, petrochemical plants, LNG facilities, and offshore production assets. Equipment opened with limited prior knowledge often reveals surprises—maldistribution, internal damage, fouling, or phase anomalies—that drive scope growth, schedule overruns, and extended production losses.
Scansolution Process Diagnostic Services are designed to address this risk before a shutdown begins. By applying non-intrusive diagnostic techniques on operating or standby units, asset owners gain actionable insight into internal process conditions—allowing shutdowns to be planned with precision rather than assumption.
Using gamma attenuation scanning, Scansolution can identify tray or packing damage, fouling, flooding, maldistribution, and liquid holdup profiles under real operating conditions.
Through Thermal Neutron (Neu-Scan) diagnostics, Scansolution detects hydrocarbon, water, sludge stratification, emulsion layers, vapour pockets, and sediment build-up.
Diagnostics help confirm whether issues are mechanical or process-related, validate the necessity of shutdown, or enable safe shutdown deferral.
• Reduced Scope and Duration – Targeted maintenance and fewer equipment openings
• Improved Safety – Better isolation planning and hazard management
• Better Contractor and Material Planning – Accurate work packs and reduced last-minute changes
• Distillation and fractionation columns
• Reactors and absorbers
• Separators and drums
• Storage tanks (fixed roof, floating roof, spheres)
• Offshore topside process equipment
Pre-shutdown diagnostics transform shutdowns from assumption-driven exercises into data-driven interventions. By engaging Scansolution early, asset owners reduce cost, risk, and downtime—ensuring every shutdown delivers maximum value with minimal surprises.
Process diagnostic services are non-intrusive inspection and analysis techniques used to understand internal process conditions of operating equipment such as columns, reactors, vessels, and storage tanks without opening or shutting down the asset.
Pre-shutdown diagnostics reduce uncertainty, enable targeted maintenance, shorten shutdown duration, and improve safety by identifying actual problem locations and root causes in advance.
Yes. Most Scansolution diagnostic services, including gamma scanning and Thermal Neutron (Neu-Scan) diagnostics, are performed while the plant is online or in standby with minimal operational disruption.
Gamma scanning provides density profiles of columns and reactors, revealing fouling, flooding, tray damage, maldistribution, or packing collapse, allowing maintenance to focus only on affected sections.
Thermal Neutron (Neu-Scan) diagnostics identify hydrocarbon, water, and sludge stratification, emulsion or rag zones, vapour pockets, and sediment accumulation, supporting safer isolation and tank cleaning planning.
In certain cases, diagnostics confirm that issues are process-related rather than mechanical, allowing operators to safely defer shutdown or optimise operation until a planned turnaround.
No. Diagnostics complement internal inspection by guiding and optimising intrusive work, reducing unnecessary equipment opening.
Refineries, petrochemical plants, LNG facilities, offshore production platforms, terminals, and tank farms all benefit from pre-shutdown process diagnostics.