(124a) Adequate Pressure Relief

Pressure relief valves are reliable and effective means of overpressure protection that protect personnel and equipment from the dangers of overpressure.  Relief systems design validation and ensuring appropriate relief protection should take place not only during initial design but on a regular interval as changes are made to equipment and/or processes.  Changes and tie-ins can drastically influence the capability of existing systems to safely handle overpressure situations. This presenstation reviews the requirements and illustrates how seemingly minor process modifications result in severly underrated pressure relief scenarios. 

 Additionally a case study is presented for a boiler plant which shows distribution pattern of equipment not meeting code requirements as well as distribution pattern of various types of deficiencies/concerns.

 The presentation also describes benefits of rigorously simulating column systems while estimating relief requirements, steady state set up for simple systems, simulation set up for complex systems with convergence issues and benefits of dynamic simulations.