Steam Blowdown Failure Case Study

Problem

A major petrochemical facility experienced failures from a 2000 psi blowdown system. not only did the failures shut the unit down and cause losses in excess of $1 million, but also posed a safety hazard for the operators.

Solution

KHE developed a transient pressure and momentum fluid dynamics analysis that incorporated the blowdown valve, upstream piping and downstream piping. This was manually coupled to a structural dynamics analysis. KHE determined that the root cause was an improperly sized blowdown system, which we simply redesigned.

Result

The redesigned system operates smoothly resulting in high operator confidence. This design now serves as a model design for blowdown systems for the facility.