Turbines
Reliability: Plan startups wisely and involve SMEs
DE, a retired former colleague of mine, recounted his experience as an expert witness for ABC in litigation against XYZ. (Note that I picked the letters A through M for the plaintiff’s side; N through Z are assigned to the defendants.)
Engineering Case Histories: Case 110: A checklist for vibration analysis
Periodically, I receive questions from engineers around the world on why a piece of critical machinery is vibrating excessively.
Design of very-high-flow coefficient centrifugal compressor stages
Centrifugal compressors are widely used in the oil and gas and petrochemical industries, with more than 15,000 operating in the U.S. alone.
Reveal the unmonitored risks in your rotating equipment: The effects of torsional vibration—Part 2
In recent case studies, unexpected and unmonitored torsional vibration resulted in sudden failures, costly downtime and potential safety hazards. Part 1 of this article, which appeared in the January issue of <i>Hydrocarbon Processing,</i> examined the origins of torsional vibration and case histories to drive an understanding of the unmonitored risk existing at many industrial sites.
Reveal the unmonitored risks in your rotating equipment—Part 1
On December 15, 2002, an anomalous event occurred in a steam turbine of Unit 2 at the South Texas Project Electric Generating Station, a pressurized water reactor (PWR) nuclear reactor near Bay City, Texas. The ensuing investigation concluded that a blade was ejected from a low-pressure stage, and detailed inspections revealed additional cracked blades in several stages.
Reliability: Things rarely heard at reliability conferences
We can only guess how many reliability conferences we have attended since accepting job offers in the refining or chemical processing industries. In my case, starting in 1965, it is somewhere between 60 and 80. If, in each of these conferences I listened to six presentations, the number of sessions attended is perhaps 400.
Can ammonia be a future energy storage solution?
Ammonia is well known as a fertilizer. However, it is also a potential carbon-free fuel and an excellent solution for storage of renewable electricity, especially if the syngas needed for producing the ammonia is made by electrolysis.
Reliability: When slow-rolling machines can cause failures, and how to avoid them
All the book learning in the world will fail if we do not use common sense. We could also say that we need to think things through and should recognize that intuitive logic can lead us astray. If that sounds like semantic banter, let us zero in on three practical field examples that illustrate the issues at hand.
Consider installing a VFD to increase reliability and savings
The Petronor oil refinery is in the north of Spain and is part of REPSOL Group. In 2019, the facility upgraded the driver of a reformer’s draft fan from a general-purpose steam turbine and gearbox to a variable frequency drive (VFD) electric motor.
Hydrocarbon Processing Awards Winners
<i>Hydrocarbon Processing,</i> the downstream processing sector’s leading technical publication, has announced the winners for its third annual awards. The <i>HP</i> Awards celebrate innovative technologies and people that have been instrumental in improving facility operations over the past year.
- Dow Chemical delays construction on multi-billion-dollar Path2Zero project in Fort Saskatchewan, Alberta, Canada 4/25
- Asahi Kasei, Nobian, Furuya Metal and Mastermelt commence joint project to recycle metals, signaling a milestone towards circularity in the chlor-alkali industry 4/25
- India's Delhi plans to curb gasoline car sales, ban gas-guzzling bikes to shed polluter tag 4/25
- Automakers rush to meet surging China demand for long-range hybrids 4/25
- Aster Chemicals to bid for ExxonMobil's Singapore fuel stations 4/25
- Wärtsilä, Höegh Evi and partners complete development of world’s first floating ammonia-to-hydrogen cracker 4/25
