At the end of January 2012, the following announcement made global headlines:
“Major Refinery Operator Files for Bankruptcy”. There are numerous reasons at hand, when large corporations are forced to file for bankruptcy. Besides competition and management issues, a decisive factor can often be as simple as high operating costs due to maintenance. Maintenance costs massively increase expenditures and thus, make healthy company economics difficult.
Safety valves protect the refinery processes against hazardous overpressures. These measures are crucial as high temperature differences could result in major pressure fluctuations taking place in the plants.
Safety valves provide numerous advantages, opening when pressure becomes too high and automatically closing after venting. However, an immense drawback is that safety valves are very maintenance-intensive, and present the disadvantage of not providing leak tightness. In turn, this results in huge material wastage and rising emission rates.
“When operating several large plants worldwide, it’s the volume that counts”, says Stefan Penno, Managing Director of REMBE® GMBH SAFETY+CONTROL, the specialist for process safety from Brilon/Germany. “Incessant material wastage weakens the value-added chain, pollutes the environment and demands increased maintenance efforts. Now that’s costly.”
A study conducted by the Netherlands Organisation for Applied Scientific Research (TNO) substantiates this conclusion: 22-27% of all leakages, defects in leak tightness result from flange connections.
Just in the Netherlands, this results in an annual loss of raw materials loss of gases and liquids of approximately 106,000 tons. With a calculated average price of 700,00 EUR/ton, this results in a loss of 75 mio. EUR/year. When adding the leakage losses resulting from shaft sealing, an additional 383.000 tons/year is achieved; e.g. an amazing 268 mio. EUR, only for the Netherlands.
The American Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has discovered that 40.000 tons of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) alone have been annually emitted in the USA.
Besides the economic damage, environmental contamination also remains a topic.
REMBE®, specialised in process safety and explosion protection for nearly forty years, recommends all refinery operators to revise their opinions. “The sole implementation of safety valves doesn’t make sense in every case. There are certain sensitive process areas, where one is truly better advised to implement robust bursting discs.” states Penno further.
Based on this background, REMBE® has specialised in laser technology, and developed a unique two-layered REMBE® reverse acting buckling-pin bursting disc (KUB®); its usability in those types of demanding processes has proven itself for years.
The BT-KUB® mechanism is based on the buckling-pin principle by Leonard Euler. As opposed to other bursting disc manufacturers, REMBE® waives any mechanical scoring. This is due to the fact that response pressures are accurately defined by Euler’s buckling-pins, which are positioned by state-of-the-art laser technology.
“Once our bursting disc is installed, it needs no further maintenance and reliably safeguards the process/plant. Only in the event that the disc has responded, must it be replaced; the timeframe can vary, after a year, a decade or never”, Penno explains.
“In light of recent events, it would be wise to inspect the process safety and efficiency of existing as well as newly constructed refinery plants. By installing supplementary bursting discs, money can be saved long-term and thus, counteracts bankruptcy; at least in regard to operating and maintenance costs.”
Custom-made bursting disc passes the test and stands for quality, even under the most extreme of conditions
A notable transformer manufacturer asked REMBE® for help in 2007. The reason? They had delivered transformers to an energy company in Canada and obtained bursting discs and holders via one of our competitors. After a short time, leaks appeared on the discs that could not be easily repaired, especially in a transformer containing 204,000 litres of oil. A speedy and longterm solution was needed.
Now this Canadian energy company had already had good experiences with REMBE® bursting discs when used by a Korean manufacturer. Therefore REMBE® was asked to find an ideal solution for the leakage. The requirement: new bursting discs which fit the existing dimensions. As a result REMBE® engineers developed KUB® bursting discs to their existing dimensions. Forty existing fittings were equipped with forty reverse buckling-pin bursting discs from the model range BT-KUB®. The energy company was greatly satisfied with the installation and the leak never occurred again.
Custom-made rescue
At the end of 2010 both REMBE® expert Thomas Münstermann (Head of Process Safety Department) and the Canadian company themselves inspected these installed bursting discs using an endoscope. The result: no defects whatsoever. Two discs were removed and put through an official German Technical Inspection Agency test (TÜV) in the Brilon plant. The bursting discs had been used under extreme conditions and, even after two and a half years, fulfilled the clients’ requirements. “This outstanding test result was yet another confirmation for the customer that they made the right decision. But the result didn’t surprise REMBE,” states Business Development Director Orhan Karagöz, “premium quality, professional consultation and correct product choice give the customer real confidence.”
Spiral-ring sealing in force shunt has proven successfully for more than 40 years.
REMBE® has adopted this concept and meets with this consequently the current requirements and regulations of the new German guideline VDI 2290 „emissions reduction: parameter for tight flange connections”.
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In the holder gasket surface at this a spiral-ring sealing is implemented in the force shunt which protects the process best and all-purpose from leakages.
Therefore the spiral-ring sealing is ideal for the use in critical production processes. The complete system “bursting disc-holder-flange connection” fulfills simply and in a trustworthy manner the specifications “made to last technically tight” acc. to the German regulations VDI 2290, Betr.SichV, TRBS 2152-2 und TRBS 2141-3.
Contact:
Thomas Münstermann
Head of Department “Process Safety”/KUB® Product Manager
REMBE® GMBH SAFETY + CONTROL
Gallbergweg 21
59929 Brilon / Germany
Tel: + 49 (0) 2961- 7405 – 0
Fax: + 49 (0) 2961- 507 14
sales@rembe.de
www.rembe.de
