Becht staff include over ten senior materials experts with expertise in applications including power, refinining, petrochemical and chemical facilities, and materials including metals, coatings and linings, and nonmetals such as refractories, thermoplastics (e.g., high density polyethylene) and reinforced thermosetting resins (e.g., fiberglass). Our services include material selection, establishing operating envelopes for equipment, failure analysis, remaining life assessment, and establishing deterioration mechanisms and their associated probabilities for risk based inspection and development of equipment reliability plans. We are experts in modifications to existing chemical processes to alleviate and control corrosion that allows continued operation of existing equipment. We are experts in the equipment requirements for processing corrosive crudes (e.g. high TAN crudes such as Doba crude) as well as material applications for high temperature services such as steam cracking furnaces and furnaces to produce synthesis gas.
Participants: Gerrit Buchheim, Mel Larson, Fred Lea, and Robert Ohmes To review the Q&A article in Digital Refining, please click HERE We didn’t expect severe corrosion issues in the carbon steel of our amine unit. What’s causing it? – Gerrit Buchheim Severe corrosion in amine units is not rare and should be expected. Depending […]
Global trends towards lowering greenhouse gas emissions has forced energy companies to reevaluate their operating strategies. The challenge is time and concepts to achieve a “net zero,” which means looking at alternative feedstocks and new processes. These pressures are leading towards a global energy transition. While some biofuel processes have been around for approximately 20 […]
With contributing author Frank Sapienza Thickness measurement data generated through the routine inspection program represents the largest source of data generated in the mechanical integrity department of a refinery. Gathering as much usable information from this data in a time efficient manner presents one of the greater challenges to plant inspectors and engineers. Some refineries […]
Integrity Operating Windows (IOWs) are an important component of a world class mechanical integrity program. IOWs are not a new concept, as they have been around in different forms for many years. However, due to some recent high-profile industry indictments and with the publication of the first edition of API RP 584 Integrity Operating Windows […]
Overview The first four parts of this series have described the updated Becht HTHA model and presented extensive validation for its application to Carbon Steel and C-0.5Mo. Based on this validation, time-based Nelson Curves for Carbon Steel (CS) and C-0.5Mo suitable for inclusion in API RP 941 [1] are now presented. General Assumptions Curves are […]
Overview Part 3 of this series presented the data set and calibration used to characterize C-0.5Mo performance. This part extends the calibration to Carbon Steel using the same basic calibration procedure. Unlike C-0.5Mo where carbon activity was used as the calibration parameter, for Carbon Steel the carbon activity is assumed to be 1 in all […]
Overview Part 2 of this series presented the extension of our model to C-0.5Mo material and calibration to very detailed through-wall damage data for five C-0.5Mo cases (from [1]). This part completes the analysis of C-0.5Mo by including data from API RP 941 [2] (including both plotted and file points) and the remaining cases from […]
Overview In Part 1 of this blog series an overview of two basic extensions to our void growth based HTHA model was given. In this part, validation of through-wall damage predictions are provided by leveraging the unique and exceptionally detailed work presented in the Peng Lui PhD dissertation [1]. Validation is critical for any model, […]
Overview This past spring, we described how we’ve incorporated well-established void growth modeling into our high temperature hydrogen attack (HTHA) assessment approach [1]. The purpose of this extension was to blend a reliable time basis for HTHA with our existing critical factor-based method (also published in the Inspectioneering Journal 6 years earlier [2]). The Inspectioneering […]
Introduction This is an update to our previous blog on cracking of refinery hydroprocessing REACs made of duplex stainless steel: View Original Post 2205 DSS (UNS S31803 or S32205) has been used in refinery hydroprocessing unit reactor effluent air coolers (REACs) since the mid 1980’s (1). 2205 was selected due to its good resistance to ammonium […]
