In this section of the site contributing authors submit interesting articles relating
to the various services, industries and research & development efforts of Becht.
By: Scott Sayles, Matthew Caserta, Stephen DeLude and Al Keller Comprehensive review of corrosion operating concerns when co-processing renewables and bio-oils through existing hydrotreaters, FCC units, amine units, and other assets. Below is an excerpt from an article recently published in PTQ Q3 2022 Issue (digitalrefining.com) Renewable feedstocks: Processing Steps The processing of renewable feedstocks […]
The people side of component or system failures is rarely addressed, identified or corrected. Evaluation of the people side of equipment failures may be of more value than failure reports or looking at the actual mechanical failure. Let’s talk about personal accountability and the consequences of having too little accountability, and in some cases zero […]
Production facilities are all about what can we produce today. Everything can be rushed. When problems arise, people want the answer now and there is pressure to take the most expedient solution. Consider taking a step back and have a look at the historical data to see what has been going on long term. Is […]
with Abby King Moving from a reactive to proactive culture is not an easy thing to do, partially because there isn’t that immediate need to jump in to diagnose a problem or an emergency fix to equipment to get the plant back on-line. We have all been there, we get the call in the middle […]
A common phrase is “What’s measured is managed”. What’s also true is that measuring the wrong things can drive unintended behaviors. We want to be deliberate in choosing the metrics that we track for maintenance. We want to communicate what our objectives are, such as increasing efficiency, schedule attainment or improving repair quality. It is […]
This is the second (and hopefully last) in a personal series on slips trips and falls. Many of you may remember a few years ago I sent out a Safety Focus on a slip and fall incident that happened to me that resulted in a broken left arm. I spoke about the importance of using […]
Published in the Inspectioneering Journal, January/February 2022 Introduction Nearly two years ago, in an Inspectioneering Journal article, Practical HTHA Experience and Time-Based Nelson Curves for Improved Equipment Life Management, we described how to incorporate well-established void growth modeling (see Figure 1) into a high temperature hydrogen attack (HTHA) assessment approach [1]. Since then, we have […]
I personally went through Hurricane Rita and Hurricane Ike during my career living in the Gulf Coast. Restarting our plants after these storms was challenging, home life was miserable without power for three weeks and traveling over 100 miles north to find gasoline, food and water for family and neighbors was time consuming and hazardous. […]
In 2008, Becht Engineering was awarded a project by the Materials Technology Institute (MTI) to develop an inspection guideline document and software tool for the collection and analysis of inspection data for piping, piping components and pressure vessels. Dr. Eileen Chant , as project manager, collaborated with Bob Sims of Becht, Dr. Mark Stone of […]
Overview We presented a comprehensive five part series on our HTHA modeling approach in the fall of 2020. This series extended the initial work presented in [1] in several significant ways, including: Inclusion of vessel pressure and weld residual stresses Treatment of C-0.5Mo material Direct relation of the damage and life fractions the model predicts […]
