Metallurgy solution to prevent polythionic acid stress corrosion cracking in hydroprocessing

Richard Hoehn is a Senior Fellow at Honeywell UOP, where he has been employed for 43 yr, 32 yr of which have been in the field of hydroprocessing. He received a BS degree in chemical engineering from Purdue University. He has been granted 43 patents and has received the Ernest W. Thiele Award from the Chicago Section of the AIChE.

Steven Bradley is a Senior Research Fellow at Honeywell UOP, where he is responsible for metallurgical studies and failure analyses, and for electron microscopy characterization of catalysts. Dr. Bradley received his PhD from Northwestern University in materials science and engineering, is a Fellow of ASM Intl. and is an Award of Merit Fellow of ASTM. He is a registered professional engineer in Illinois, has published extensively in the area of metallurgical and catalyst analyses and development, and holds 15 US patents.

Mark Mucek is the Senior Metallurgist and a Senior Engineering Fellow in the process technology and equipment department with Honeywell UOP. He has more than 38 yr of experience in the petroleum refining industry, and consults worldwide on issues of equipment performance and reliability, fitness-for-service, fabrication, welding, corrosion and materials of construction. He holds BS and MS degrees in metallurgical engineering from the Illinois Institute of Technology. Mr. Mucek is a past Chairman of NACE Intl. Specific Technology Group 34, Petroleum Refining and Gas Processing. He is the present Chairman of NACE Task Group 393, “Petroleum Refinery Corrosion Specialist Certification,” and Chairman of ISO 17945, “Materials Resistant to Sulfide Stress Cracking in Corrosive Petroleum Refining Environments.” Mr. Mucek is also a member of the NACE Intl. Institute Specialty Board of Oil/Gas Production and Process Facility Corrosion Certifications, as well as a member of the General Education Subcommittee.

Hiroyuki Anada has worked as a corrosion engineer for NSSMC for 32 yr and as the General Manager of NSST for 2 yr. He has also been a member of NACE and an API sub-committee member for 12 yr and an ASTM committee member for 7 yr.

T. Osuki has conducted research on welding metallurgy for 10 yr in the research and development department of Sumitomo Metal Industries. Ltd., and has worked as a Service Engineer for 5 yr in Amagasaki Works of Nippon Steel and Sumitomo Metal Corp.