February 21, 2011

And the Flare goes "BOOM" at night!

When I was working in the Middle East, we had a 80 m tall flare that sat in the middle of the plant. After a few years we started hearing "BOOM" noises from the flare when the plant was running normally. The noise was heard more often at night. The "BOOM" used to be muffled and there was no external evidence of an explosion in the flare and the plant continued to operate without interruption. We did a lot of investigation and finally caught the culprit that was allowing air into the system. Treat your flare systems with respect. They are mute spectators when everything is normal but can save the day during an emergency!
For a good presentation on flare systems see this link

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