Bloch, Heinz P.
Heinz P. Bloch resides in Montgomery, Texas. He retired as Exxon Chemical’s Regional Machinery Specialist for the U.S. and has authored or co-written more than 780 publications, among them 23 comprehensive books on practical machinery management, failure analysis, failure avoidance, compressors, steam turbines, pumps, oil mist lubrication and optimized lubrication for industry. Mr. Bloch holds BS and MS degrees (cum laude) in mechanical engineering from the Newark College of Engineering (NCE). He is one of 10 inaugural inductees into NCE’s Hall of Fame, which honors its most distinguished alumni.
HP Reliability: Avoid unnecessary developments
Innovative thinking is appropriate in the hydrocarbon processing industry, and tremendous forward movement has occurred over the past 30 years. Innovation is to be commended, unless we invent or disco..
HP Reliability: Pump alignment saves power
Awareness of energy efficiency is one of the minimum job qualifications for reliability engineers. In the summer of 1994, Jack Lambley, then an intern at the Imperial Chemical Industries (ICI) Rocksav..
HP Reliability: Consider procedure cards, technical books and maintenance conferences for training
Because our memories are imperfect and we don’t want to risk making mistakes, we learned to jot down brief reminder notes on paper. Some people call it a cheat sheet, or a checklist. An airline p..
HP Reliability: Selecting steam turbines in a ‘lean’ environment
We received a nice compliment recently from a reader in South America. He wrote: “I am a mechanical engineer working on power plant designs at a major corporation and admire your work as a writer..
Consider lobe blowers combined with compressors
New blower meets low-pressure applications cost-effectively
HP Reliability: Dealing with asset management and life extension
The business manager for an asset management solutions (AMS) firm in the Middle East faced a big task. He had been asked to execute a major project for an oil and gas producer and wanted to have his q..
HP Reliability: Repetitive pump seal failures can cause disasters
Release No. 2004-08-I-NM (http://www.csb.gov), issued in October 2005 by the US Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board, addresses an incident at an oil refinery with a history of repeated pump..
HP Reliability: How flawed reward systems cost you dearly
In a US trade journal, someone recently observed that "successful lean implementation needs reliable equipment to prevent disastrous consequences. Together, they increase production capacity, decrease..
HP Reliability: How pump installation must differ from the way pumps were shipped
In general, process pump manufacturers are asked to provide pumps as a "set" or assembled package comprising pump, driver and baseplate (Fig. 1). After ascertaining correct shaft separation to accommo..
HP Reliability: More about unreliability, global procurement and you
We quite obviously believe that reading is the key to professional growth and that Mark Twain was right in stating that the man who refuses to read is no different from the illiterate person who canno..
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