Consolidating multiple flares can help mitigate emissions and maintenance Chris Ng and Zubin Kumana Siemens, Process Safety Consulting Many petroleum-refining and petrochemical facilities have experienced tremendous growth in recent years in response to increasing demand for fuels and chemical precursors.…
Dimensionless numbers refer to physical parameters that have no units of measurement. These numbers often appear in calculations used by process engineers. As long as consistent units are used, dimensionless numbers remain the same whether metric or other units are…
A wide range of factors must be taken into account before selecting the most appropriate reforming technology From the agrochemicals sector to steel production, from petroleum refineries to chemicals production — many sectors of the chemical process industries (CPI) would…
Guidelines are presented to better understand the temperature profiles of high-velocity gases In high-velocity gas flows, such as those that may occur within the discharge piping of a pressure-relief or depressurization valve, the temperature experienced at the wall of the…
The substance known colloquially as table sugar is actually sucrose, a disaccharide composed of fructose and glucose. Sucrose is a major agriculturally derived product with an established industry for its extraction, processing and supply. It is mainly employed as a…
It is important to conceptualize plant layout in terms of both ideal location and optimal geographical positioning of equipment components For any chemical process facility, the cost of improper or sub-obtimal plant layout can be enormous. Designers are generally well…
Best-efficiency point (BEP), the flowrate at which a pump operates at its highest or optimum efficiency for a specific impeller diameter, is a key consideration when assessing pump performance. While most pumps do not consistently operate at their exact BEP,…
FIGURE 1 Fire-water pump assemblies are typically skid-mounted to ease installation and operation. Shown here is an example of a skid-mounted, diesel-engine-driven, fire-water pump package Fire-water pumps are critical machines that save lives and prevent chemical process industries (CPI)…
Using flowsheet simulation to model processes involving granular solids — either those that are entirely separate from fluid processes or those that are combined with them — has many advantages for improving the process design. These include avoiding unplanned downtime,…
In today’s environmentally conscious world, industrial energy management is increasingly recognized as an essential business practice and economic necessity, rather than an on-again, off-again activity driven by energy prices and geopolitical crises. In this article, we examine the key elements…