Mishra, R., Indorama Eleme Petrochemicals and Fertilizers,
Mechanical systems, especially rotary equipment, are designed to support easy maintenance jobs with less complexity and low chances of incorrect installation.
When you boil down the mission of reliability to its bare essence, the job is to deliver maximum operational availability for the least amount of money over the lifecycle of the asset.
Petrochemical plants and refineries face production and profitability challenges on multiple fronts.
Taking ownership of issues during a critical or troubling time is just as important as assuming responsibility during times of opportunity and benefit.
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.)
Periodically, I receive questions from engineers around the world on why a piece of critical machinery is vibrating excessively.
Centrifugal compressors are widely used in the oil and gas and petrochemical industries, with more than 15,000 operating in the U.S. alone.
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 Hydrocarbon Processing, examined the origins of torsional vibration and case histories to drive an understanding of the unmonitored risk existing at many industrial sites.
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.
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.