In this section of the site contributing authors submit interesting articles relating
to the various services, industries and research & development efforts of Becht.
Becht advisors have provided a wide array of experience and background to our clients including serving as technical experts in a legal setting on many financially significant cases. In one example, our team was hired to develop economics impact of a broken five-year term agreement for our client to recover a wide range of petroleum […]
The process team at Becht Engineering brings decades of experience from serving in the R&D of major corporations and also from representing a wide variety of Becht Engineering clients. We have observed and evaluated new technology from both sides of the fence…as employees or for large corporations who do R&D internally to outpace their competition, […]
Much as an athlete who uses a cross-training approach to develop strength and stamina and improve performance, ASME must embrace an interdisciplinary approach in order to grow and thrive in the coming years, ASME’s new president, J. Robert Sims, observed during his inaugural address at the ASME Annual Meeting in Portland, Ore., earlier this week. […]
In addition to the many clarifications, updated references to codes and standards, updates to basic allowable stresses, and added listed materials, there are several substantive changes to the 2016 Edition of ASME B31.3, Process Piping, which is scheduled to be issued on January 4, 2017. These changes are: Severe Cyclic Conditions The definition for severe […]
Machinery and reliability people have for a long time observed that when it comes to long life and high reliability, operating at higher speeds compares poorly to operation at lower speeds. One of the primary reasons for having high-speed devices is economics. With high speed you can have smaller equipment sizes with fewer stages. While […]
Today’s young process engineers have tools available to them that we “old timers” only dreamed about. Although smaller and some medium sized companies will not have the items listed below, most large refining and or petrochemical operations have the following: Real-time and historical plant operating data available on his/her desk top computers; Real-time and historical […]
Changes in steelmaking practice are reported to be causing some carbon steel piping components that are assumed by ASME Codes to behave in a ductile manner at ambient temperatures, to behave instead in a brittle manner. Barry Messer from Fluor made a presentation on this subject at the Spring 2016 meeting of the ASME B31.3, […]
Design of a Nuclear Power Plant for a LOCA Nuclear power plants are designed with the capability to safely shut-down following a number of hypothetical accident scenarios. One of those accidents is the rupture of a pipe in the reactor coolant system (RCS). Such a rupture would result in a loss of coolant accident (LOCA), […]
The Process Safety Management rule (PSM), OSHA 1910.119, was implemented in the early 90’s, more than 20 years ago. Implementation was driven by a number of tragic accidents in the process industry. However, despite the long history of the rule and multiple preventable, catastrophic incidents, many companies still have not fully implemented PSM. Companies that […]
Becht Engineering personnel have significant experience in serving as Expert Witnesses for a variety of legal matters. However, litigation can be costly, time consuming and often times the outcome is unpredictable. It should be avoided if at all possible through implementation of proper controls and oversight. A much better strategy than after the fact litigation […]
