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Operations & Maintenance

Facts At Your Fingertips: Steam Trap Operation

Steam is commonly used across the chemical process industries (CPI) for a variety of end uses, including process heating, mechanical drive, moderation of chemical reactions and fractionation of hydrocarbons. Heat exchangers, turbines, fractionating towers, stripping columns, and reaction vessels are…

Selecting Valves for Hydrogen Service

With hydrogen’s evolution into an alternative fuel requiring precise production and storage, selecting the right valves has never been more important Hydrogen shows great promise in the search for alternative fuels. Handling hydrogen safely and reliably, from generation to end…

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Rotary Valves Can Prevent Stem Seal Woes

Consider the potential for stem seal leakage when selecting a valve Experienced process control engineers follow familiar, time-tested steps when presented with a new system to design and specify. Selecting a control valve for a process always requires the same…

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Holistic Maintenance and Reliability Programs

When updating equipment protection systems in a plant, it often pays to think long term. Today’s protection systems can do more than avoid catastrophic failure — they are the foundation of an enterprise-wide predictive maintenance program Chemical process industries (CPI)…

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Pad-Reinforced Nozzles in Pressure Vessels

This article examines the application of reinforcing pads for strengthening nozzles in pressure vessels and the impact of the geometric gap that exists between the pad and the vessel shell Many common forms of nozzle connections in technological applications are…

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Separating Hazardous Materials with Decanter-Centrifuge Systems

Sealed and gas-purged decanter-centrifuge systems can be effective for separating Class I, Div. 1-, or Class I, Div. 2-rated solvents and hazardous materials Traditionally, solids and liquids have been separated by filtration or with press equipment. While these methods are…

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Sliding Vane Pumps

Sliding vane pumps offer a potent processing option for low-viscosity liquids Multiple industries rely on process pumps for handling a variety of substances that help the world function as it does today. Those substances come in a wide variety of…

A Primer on LPG Storage Systems

Any loss of containment for liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) can have potentially catastrophic results. This article details various LPG storage configurations with special focus on the design of mounded-bullet systems Liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) is a mixture of propane and…

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Benefiting from Nozzle Flexibility in Piping Design

The inclusion of nozzle flexibility (directional spring rate) in pipe-stress analysis results in more realistic piping reactions on pressure-vessel nozzles, whereby it will be easier to meet the limited nozzle-load capacity of the nozzles. It will surely contribute to a…

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Improving PRV Cost of Ownership with Upstream Rupture Discs

The costs associated with installing and maintaining pressure-relief valves (PRVs) can often be reduced by equipping systems with upstream rupture discs Reclosing pressure-relief devices, commonly referred to as pressure relief valves (PRVs), are designed to allow for the release of…