Expert’s On-Site Audit Determines Cause of Heat Exchanger Leak
Our Expert conducted an On-Site Audit and his recommendations improved Production and Efficiency
The Challenge: A Heat Exchanger Unit Leaked within One Month of Service When Previously Units Were Running trouble-free for years
The customer in the Rocky Mountain foothills, recently took over a sour gas plant that has been operational for decades. The staff at the plant had completed scheduled maintenance on a pair of redundant heat exchangers, which had appeared to be running trouble-free for years. Considering this, the customer was concerned that one of the heat exchangers had leaked within 1 month of maintenance start-up. As a result, they contacted our heat exchanger expert to get to the root of the problem.
The Solution: Extensive Review and Inspection by Our Expert Helped to Determine the Cause of the Leaking Heat Exchanger
Our spray application expert called the customer to fact-find and schedule a site visit to inspect the malfunctioning heat exchanger. After the visit, the unit was removed from site and taken to the service center for a thorough inspection.
After the site visit and inspection, our expert compiled a report and met with the customer to discuss the findings. The heat exchanger had suffered a plate pack shift initiated by fluid flow and operating procedures during an extreme cold snap.
While discussing the findings with the plant process engineer and operations staff, it was determined that plant piping was not balanced between the two redundant heat exchangers. Operations also revealed the unit that failed had been troublesome over the years and they were always more cautious with it during start- up.
The Result: Based on Our Experts’ Recommendations – The Customer Was Able to Get to the Root of the Problem and Is Rewriting Procedures to Improve Plant Piping and Operations
Our Experts’ investigation led to a broader discussion with Engineering and Operations staff leading to not only improved operations and maintenance at the plant, but to a design review of piping layout.
The customer made the recommended changes, sees us as a trusted technical partner and solution provider, and continues to work with us today.
