Heat exchanger body flange: The gasket is not always tight enough

Kuntak Daru is a Pressure Vessel Engineer with Air Products and Chemicals Inc. He works in the mechanical equipment division of Air Products, supporting engineering and design activities of AP projects worldwide from the company’s Houston, Texas location. Prior to working with Air Products, Daru was a Technical Director in mechanical engineering at Fluor Corp. He has more than 30 yr of experience in the design, engineering and specification of static equipment in the refining, oil and gas, petrochemical and chemical industries. Daru has been published more than 15 times in his field and holds a BS degree in mechanical engineering from SVNIT in Surat, India. Daru is a Registered Professional Engineer in the states of Texas and Louisiana, U.S. The author can be reached at Darukm@airproducts.com or Kuntak.Daru@Gmail.com.

SAMIR MANSUR has 17 yrs of work experience in green and brownfield (revamp) projects for design; detailed engineering; engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) and project management consultancy (PMC) phases for process equipment in the refining, petrochemicals, liquefied natural gas (LNG), pharmaceutical and chemical industries. He holds a BS degree in mechanical engineering and an MS degree in mechanical engineering with specialization in cryogenics. His prior work experience includes Saudi Aramco, KIPIC (Al-Zour Refinery, Kuwait), Worley, SNC-Lavalin, Institute for Plasma Research (IPR -  An autonomous body of Department of Atomic Energy, India) and HLE Engineers Pvt. Ltd. The author can be reached at samir.sym711@gmail.com.

Anilkumar Panchal has more than 15 yr of experience as a Mechanical Design Engineer, including hands-on work experience in pharmaceutical solid and semi-solid product plants, butyl rubber, gasification, ethane cracker, chlorinated PVC and various revamp projects. He holds a BS degree in mechanical engineering and an MS degree in industrial process equipment design. Panchal is a certified Chartered Engineer and Professional Engineer in India, and has work experience at L&T Heavy Engineering, Bechtel India Ltd., Jacobs Engineering, Reliance Industries Ltd. and KIPIC, Kuwait. The author can be reached at anil0208@gmail.com.

PUNITA GALA is Senior Design Engineer at Reliance Industries Ltd. as part of the Project Management Team. She graduated from L. D. College of Engineering, Ahmedabad in mechanical engineering, and has worked on benzene recovery, extract hydrotreater and SCAN-Finer units. Her specialties include after pressure vessels, shell-and-tube heat exchangers and packaged items. Prior to Reliance Industries Ltd., she worked for Bechtel India and Larsen & Toubro Ltd.