Pressure Equipment Integrity and Safety: Why is This Important?

March 29, 2016

Dynamic internalized events take place within pressurized systems. Explosive hydrocarbons change state to conserve space. Advanced fluid management stages alter pressure, causing a volatile flash. The potential energy stored in this mechanically constricted space is controlled by specially welded vessels and pipes. Pressure equipment integrity and safety practices regulate these energies, minimizing the possibility of an explosive containment breach.

Mechanics Made to Mirror Fluid Characteristics

The actions of a fuel or heated liquid are hard to predict when flowing but much easier to assess when stored. The geometry of pressure equipment is designed to embrace uniformity so that the equalized distribution of the explosive fluid presents itself evenly at every point in the vessel. In other words, fabrication standards are incorporated in such a way as to eliminate flaws, the weak spots that would further deteriorate as time and pressure went to work.

Inbuilt Safety Margins

If the worst was to happen, a once robust mechanical seal cracked or split because of external weathering effects and the pressure, then the leak could ignite. Firewalls and emergency procedures are immediately available for fighting such an event, but a 10-Metre long jet of highly flammable fuel is no easy matter to deal with. A safety margin, one suggested by pressure equipment integrity and safety guidelines, qualifies the gear as suitable for its application, but the engineering practices used to fabricate the equipment goes further, adding a safety overhead that enables the equipment to hold more pressure, which makes sense since transient pressure spikes are part of many chemical processes.

Adopt High-Quality Fabrication Partners

Nature and chemistry bow to engineers, but disasters do happen. These events, rare though they are, let the beast loose, and a moment is all it takes to lose everything. If the facility was offshore, lives were lost when employees were caught in the explosion. When the nightmare event occurs close to populated areas, well, the potential for loss is one we hardly dare consider, which is why quality engineering standards and a superior safety record rank high in the assessment process when fabrication partners are hired.

The job of a pressure equipment integrity and safety study is to consider these situations, to learn from past errors and fabricate equipment that serves its purpose plus the purpose of that infused safety margin. Free of flaws and manufactured to exceed exacting safety guidelines, the manufacturing cycle includes a regimented inspection stage that puts pressure vessels and their associated parts through the proverbial wringer, testing the parts to near destruction so that any potential flaws come to light in the workshop and not in the field.

Contact Details

Fusion - Weld Engineering Pty Ltd
ABN 98 068 987619

1865 Frankston Flinders Road,
Hastings, VIC 3915

Ph: (03) 5909 8218

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