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April 4, 2011

Process Safety - best built in design

I read an article about North Americas largest sulphuric acid plant (4500 STPD). The design of the plant took into account the requirements of PSM and they have used 3D modelling,simulation and CFD modelling etc to build in process safety and control of emissions at the design stage itself. One of the innovations is the use of novel expansion joints for the large diameter piping.The article mentions the following:
"The large plant size and expansion movements required special attention to thermal growth. MECS developed a Swivel Expansion Joint to use in place of a multi-bellows expansion joints when the thermal movement of the duct connecting the associated equipment was in more than one plane. An internal cable allows for multi-directional movement and also accounts for the internal pressure thrust being exerted from the single convulsion joint. This design eliminates the need for the external tie-backs that would be required when using a typical multi-bellows expansion joint".
It is always cheaper to build in process safety at the design stage itself instead of retrofitting later.
Download the article (large file 10mb) from this link.

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