Pressure vessels storing gases, vapors, or fluids such as hydrogen, liquid nitrogen, compressed natural gas, or other combustible chemicals in industrial plants, sites, and refineries, can fail for a number of reasons, whether from leaks, cracks, corrosion, erosion, or operating above the allowable pressure limit. When not contained, the vessels can release highly pressurized chemicals, vapors, and gases into the air or water, which can lead to explosions or fire. For this reason, there are government regulations in place to safeguard from potential pressure vessel failures.
It takes meticulous, detailed engineering to design safety into these potentially hazardous types of equipment of different shapes, material, sizes, wall thickness, and operating pressures and temperatures. Every variable feeding into each design must maximize safety and performance.
We have the Experience
“At Anvil, we do 50 rerates a year on average across over 400 projects at a time. 10-15% of the vessel rerates we work on exhibit non-standard, geometric shapes and anomalies. As a result, our engineers and designers use SOLIDWORKS and ANSYS Finite Element Analysis (FEA) simulation software to conduct structural performance analysis of these kinds of non-traditional vessels.” – Michael Russell, Mechanical Engineering Resource Manager, Anvil Corporation.
Detailed engineering is also required when facility/refinery owners and operators want to rerate their vessels to higher maximum allowable working pressures (MAWP) and/or maximum allowable working temperatures (MAWT).
Some of these reasons may include a change of service, additional throughput, extending the life of older equipment, debottlenecking units/systems, or altering a safety relief system that may have a PSV set higher than the vessel’s design limitations. Engineers and designers then validate if a vessel can operate at these design conditions and what the new corrosion allowances will be.
The type of equipment that owners/operators typically want to rerate are within process units (e.g., overhead knock-out drums, flash drums, shell tube heat exchangers, disengager columns with internal trays, and distillation columns) that exhibit higher corrosion or erosion levels.
