Single Time Valving Device - Brochure

PRESSURE RELIEF
Single Time Valve Devices

Description
Any industrial process involving chemical reactions has an associated risk factor. The principal hazard in chemical reactions arises from so-called thermal or exothermic (heat generating) reactions. Uncontrolled, or runaway, reactions can occur as a result of various situations, such as the mischarge of raw materials, failure of a reactors cooling system or the presence of contaminants. If the heat generation exceeds the reactors ability to remove it, the reaction can accelerate or run away and cause the temperature and pressure to increase rapidly. A sudden release of energy from such uncontrolled reaction has the potential to harm workers, the public and/or the environment. Process designers and safety experts must focus on prevention of conditions favorable to a reactions excursion combined with adequately configured emergency/effluent relief systems.
Fike offers Single-Time Valving Devices to assist in achieving effective intervention in runaway reactions as well as for effective discharge of reactor contents. Interface with proven early warning detection system (EWDS) capturing the start of the runaway reaction ahead of potentially catastrophic process dynamics is readily available.
Fike Europe B.v.b.a. Toekomstlaan 52 B2200 Herentals Belgium Tel. +32 14 210031 Fax +32 14 210743 email fike-europe@fike.com website http://www.fike.be Fike United Kingdom Maidstone England Tel. (01622)677081 Fax (01622)685737 email sales@fike.co.uk website http://www.fike.co.uk
Prevent
The occurrence of situations that can trigger the existence of exothermic/runaway reactions must be prevented. Following steps are generally considered by process designers and safety experts to assure a suitable safety level to handle reactive chemical hazards:
Understand events potentially leading to runaway reaction:
In order to deal with the hazards related to reactive chemicals one must identify the hazards, and then develop an understanding on possible frequency and effects/consequences. Hazard assessment must take into account all foreseeable process deviations and the consequences of their occurrence. Where the consequences are considered to be severe, risk analysis methodology must be used to identify all possible conditions that can lead to these events. Based on this analysis suitable strategies for accident prevention or protection of installations can be determined.
Design for inherent process safety:
In some cases it may be possible to avoid or significantly reduce hazards by a change in plant design such as for example use of a lower quantity of hazardous materials in the process at any one time, the use of alternative (safer) materials, the use of less hazardous processing conditions or the use of semi-batch processing instead of batch processing. Such process plants are generally simpler with fewer opportunities for error, less dependant on additional safety systems and respond more slowly to change.
Minimize the potential for human error:
Designers shall anticipate all possible human errors and carefully evaluate scenarios where errors can lead to catastrophic results. The implementation of available protective measures such as temperature control, instrumentation and interlocks to eliminate opportunities for human error must be carefully considered. Evaluation of operating procedures must be included to minimize the likelihood of an undetected human error. Operators must be adequately trained and supervised before they are assigned to critical operations possibly leading to the initiation of uncontrolled reactions.
and Control Runaway Reactions

Where preventive measures can not provide sufficient margins of safety, protective measures must be included to render the process safe. Such protective measures can be aimed at timely detection of the onset runaway and intervention to stop the reactive hazard conditions, or assure that effective emergency relief systems are installed.
Inhibition of runaway conditions:
A runaway reaction, if caught early, can often be halted by adding a suitable chemical component to cancel the effect of the reaction catalyst. Early warning detection systems (EWDS) have been developed to assist in the timely detection and are available to the industry user. Common measures include neutralization, quenching with water or another suitable diluent or dumping the reactor content into another vessel which contains a quench media. In many cases the activation of additional or emergency (crash) cooling of the reactor content can be sufficient to remove the excess heat generated by the exothermic reaction.
Design of effective emergency venting system:
Proper vent sizing for potential runaway exothermic reactions is complex, requiring data on heat and pressure generation occurring during the runaway. For this reason the application of traditional non-reactive discharge calculation methods can generally not be applied. For most reactive process effluent discharge systems the pressure rise due to the runaway may be extremely fast, making it necessary to assure fast, unobstructed discharge of the reactor content to a suitably designed handling system.
Fike Single-Time Valve Devices

Based on the use of proven bursting disc technology Fike offers Single-Time Valve Devices to assist in highly reliable/efficient safety interventions for reactive chemical hazards such as: Crash Cooling Initiation Inhibitor Injection Controlled Reactor Content Release Emergency Venting System
Crash (Reactor) Cooling Initiation:

The activation of (additional) reactor cooling systems at a suitable time during the offset of the exothermic reaction may be sufficient to remove the heat generated by the runaway and stop the reaction. Fike Single-Time Valve Devices offer all features required for the effective activation of such critical safety systems: * The highest level of reliability, * Unobstructed flow of cooling agent to reactor and * leak-tight construction to avoid reaction process integrity * Maintenance-friendly concept
Inhibitor (Killer) Injection:

The fast and effective injection of a suitable agent into the ensuing runaway reaction/reactor content to inhibit the reaction process or quench the reaction in an early stage is often preferred. Fike Single-Time Valve Devices are available in a wide selection of materials of construction to resist to potential corrosion by the process media or inhibitor, are leak-tight to assure that there is no process contamination during normal operation and release the inhibitor instantaneously/reliably when required to do so.
Controlled Reactor Content Release:

Where the release of the reactor content is required to ensure that the runaway reaction is dealt with in separate process vessels (often equipped with a suitable quenching or diluents media to moderate the runaway reaction), Fike Single-Time Valve Devices can be used to initiate this sequence at a predetermined moment/stage in the runaway reaction.
Emergency Venting System:

Where the development of reactor content pressure reaches predetermined limits the release of the reactor content to an emergency effluent handling/discharge system must be guaranteed. Fike Single-Time Valve Devices offer fast, unobstructed and reliable relief to process equipment under strain of exothermic runaway process conditions.
Fike offers solutions for all chemical process conditions where runaway reactions can not be tolerated and their effects must be controlled.
Contact Fike Europe

EUROPE FIKE EUROPE 2200 Herentals Belgium Tel: +32-14-210031 E-mail: fike-europe@fike.com FIKE UNITED KINGDOM Maidstone, Kent, ME 14 1PF United Kingdom Tel: +44-1-622-677081 Email: sales@fike.co.uk FIKE FRANCE F-95526 Cergy Pontoise Cedex France Tel: +33-1-30-31-31-32 Email: contact@fike-france.fr FIKE DEUTSCHLAND 68309 Mannheim Germany Tel: +49-621-321-67-0 E-mail: info@fike.de FIKE ITALIA I-20129 Milano Italy Tel: +39-02-2952-4166 Email: webmaster@fike.it FIKE IBERICA E-08029 Barcelona Spain Tel: +34-93-6000-800 Email: fike@fike.es

Single Time Valving Device - Brochure

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PRESSURE RELIEF

Single Time Valve Devices

Understand events potentially leading to runaway reaction:

Design for inherent process safety:

Minimize the potential for human error:

and Control Runaway Reactions

Inhibition of runaway conditions:

Design of effective emergency venting system:

Fike Single-Time Valve Devices

Crash (Reactor) Cooling Initiation:

Inhibitor (Killer) Injection:

Controlled Reactor Content Release:

Emergency Venting System:

Contact Fike Europe

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