Specialty Chemical Production Facility Relief Devices Evaluation

Project Synopsis

Project Summary

Process Engineering International, LLC (PROCESS) was contracted by the client, a U.S. based engineering company, to perform sizing services for various safety relief devices for a specialty chemical manufacturing facility in North America.  As a part of this project the following tasks were accomplished:

• Reviewed and evaluated existing relief devices to determine if the proper sized devices were installed in the production facility
• Recalculated client requested relief scenarios as appropriate
• Performed sizing calculations and provided documentation for approximately 13 pressure safety devices including Pressure Safety Valves (PSVs) and Rupture Disks (PSEs)
• Performed hydraulic calculations to adequately size inlet and outlet piping for the existing and new relief devices.

PROCESS utilized licensed commercial simulation software’s hydraulics package and chemical/physical component database along with its proprietary in-house relief device capacity computer program, with calculations based on the guidelines in American Petroleum Institute (API) Standards 520 and 521, to determine the pressure relief device requirements for this application.

PROCESS supplied the client with the pressure relief device (PRD) sizing documentation packages that included the following:

• Safety device calculations
• Hydraulic calculations
• Relevant assumptions
• Copies of field and equipment data where appropriate
• A summary of MAWP for each protected vessel
• Recommendations when changes were deemed necessary.

PROCESS also provided “red-lined” Piping and Instrumentation Diagrams (P&IDs) and suggested specific relief devices represented in vendor literature when needed.

Industry Type

Utilized Skills

• Relief device sizing
• Hydraulic simulation and line sizing.