Tom Morrison

Tom has over 25 years experience providing: quantitative risk analyses for offshore structures and pipelines in the Canadian Arctic and offshore; determining onshore pipeline optimized inspection and maintenance timing; analyzing steam generator corrosion and flaw issues; and providing optimization, statistical and mathematical modelling abilities to complicated problems. Tom began his career synthesizing properties of multi-year ice and extreme ice features in the Arctic Ocean relevant for structure and pipeline design and input to ice loads models. He also assisted in development of an ice/structure interaction model used to estimate ice loads on proposed offshore structures in the Canadian Beaufort Sea. Other studies included risk analyses and probabilistic studies relevant for offshore structure and offshore pipeline design. Tom was co-owner and Senior Partner at Morrison Scientific Inc. for much of his career, and team leader developing and using a pit-to-pit matching optimization methodology whereby repeat inspections of pipelines using instrumented pigs could be used to obtain the best estimate of the growth of each individual pit on a pipeline. Interaction of pits after each is individually grown in length, width and penetration based on the differences and time between inspections yielded probability distributions of penetration and failure pressure as a function of time for optimized inspection and maintenance planning. As part of this work Tom contributed to developments in the statistical determination of measurement error of inspection and measuring tools (not simply for pipeline or steam generator inspection tools, but for measuring instruments in general). He has contracted to the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission to review and constructively critique mathematical and statistical models of corrosion prediction and future flaw severity in steam generators and preheaters. He has estimated the measurement errors of a variety of inspection tools used to measure the severity of a variety of different flaws in steam generators. He has examined and critiqued measurement error estimation procedures proposed by others for a Russian consulting firm. He also contracted to Husky Energy as an optimization specialist in the Midstream and New Ventures Business Unit, including developing an analytical model of pipeline system / tank farm level of service estimation as a function of input and output of product streams and the working volume of the tank farm. Tom returned to arctic and offshore work by joining Sandwell as Senior Ice Specialist and Business Development Manager for Cold Regions and Offshore at the Calgary Business Unit. Tom has a master’s in Statistics and Operations Research from the University of Calgary and a bachelor’s in Physics from the University of Alberta. e-mail: tmorrison@sandwell.com .