Maintenance & Reliability
Ultrasonic flowmeters improve delayed coker reliability
A US refiner significantly reduced flowmeter maintenance costs and improved safety by changing to ultrasonic flowmeters for coker furnace feed flow. A second refiner chose to install ultrasonic meters from the start.
Improving decoking water system reliability in delayed coker units
Here's how the erosion and corrosion problems were solved
Mechanical seals and energy efficiency
Savings can be realized by using the most suitable API seal flush plan
Case 44: Cracking due to sudden temperature changes in piping
Excessive thermal stresses can be the cause
HP Reliability: More than procedures are needed to avoid incidents
Here is the typical scenario: An explosion rips through a refinery (and when an explosion happens, the heat is on). As usual, the organization reacts swiftly. The customary failed assets remediation t..
Selecting the right welded-metal bellows seal
Understand the differences to get the most effective product for the application
HP Reliability: Thinking independently
Our October 2007 column touched on the subject of tracking mean-time-between-failures (MTBFs) of general-purpose machinery. It was noted that, to achieve high MTBF, some unit managers used frequent in..
Case 43: Containing a failed impeller
A quick analysis can help direct further efforts
HP Reliability: Vent gas compressor selection
Energy conservation is of ever-increasing importance to process plants from the smallest to the largest. Gas streams that were flared a decade ago are now often recompressed and recycled back to the ..
Controlling crude unit overhead corrosion by improved desalting
Here are benchmark values for evaluating the effectiveness of existing units

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