Predictive and Preventive Maintenance

Practical Advice for Predictive and Preventive Maintenance With shrinking budgets and fewer resources, plant management must find ways to improve equipment reliability while optimizing cost efficiencies, says Bart Winters, senior marketing manager, Reliability Solutions, Honeywell Process Solutions. A key factor to ensuring equipment reliability is to focus on predictive and preventive maintenance, he says. Following, according to Winters, are crucial things to consider for predictive and preventive maintenance: Start at the beginning. Develop overall condition/performance assessment of plant wide assetsKnow your assets. Understand the current state of each asset and its conditionDevelop collaboration. Create a partnership between operations, maintenance and suppliers for quicker resolution...

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Mass Balance

A mass balance (also called a material balance) is an application of conservation of mass to the analysis of physical systems. By accounting for material entering and leaving a system, mass flows can be identified which might have been unknown, or difficult to measure without this technique. The exact Conservation law used in the analysis of the system depends on the context of the problem but all revolve around mass conservation, i.e. that matter cannot disappear or be created spontaneously. Mass balances are used widely in engineering and environmental analyses. For example mass balance theory is used to design chemical reactors, analyse alternative...

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Ultra-Low Sulfur Diesel (ULSD)

As the EPA mandate for 100% conversion by 2010 to ultra-low sulfur diesel (ULSD) fuel approaches, stakeholders are on track to resolve or prevent issues that may arise, according to Michael Harrigan of Zen Fuels, LLC, in Ann Arbor, Michigan. “The awareness exists,” says Harrigan, “of what some of the potential issues might be as the oil companies actually produce this fuel.” He cautions that ultra-low sulfur diesel must be forthcoming in order to meet the particulate standards because sulfur fosters the production in the particulate of soot during the combustion process. Key learnings from the run-up to the 80% mandate have proved beneficial in more ways than were anticipated. “We’ve been through the whole business of removing the sulfur and having lubricity issues,” says Harrigan, “but as...

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Distillation theoretical plate

A theoretical plate in many chemical engineering separation processes is a hypothetical zone or stage in which two phases, such as the liquid and vapor phases of a substance, establish an equilibrium with each other. Those zones or stages may also be referred to as a theoretical tray or an equilibrium stage. The performance of many separation processes depends on having a series of equilibrium stages and is enhanced by providing more such stages. In other words, having more theoretical plates increases the efficacy of the separation process be it either a distillation, absorption, chromatographic, adsorption or similar process. Applications...

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McCabe-Thiele method

The McCabe-Thiele method is a graphical approach, published by McCabe and Thiele in 1925, considered to be the simplest and most instructive method for the analysis of binary distillation. This method uses the fact that the composition at each theoretical plate (or equilibrium stage) is completely determined by the mole fraction of one of the two components. The McCabe-Thiele method is based on the assumption of constant molar overflow which requires that: the molal heats of vaporization of the feed components are equal for every mole of liquid vaporized, a mole of vapor is condensed heat effects such as heats of solution and...

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What is Asphalt?

Properties Asphalt is water repellant due to the bitumen which is part of the asphalt conglomerate. The physical properties are dependent on the temperature of the material, as at high temperatures, asphalt has a very distinctive viscous behaviour, which becomes more and more elastic with dropping temperatures. As the physical properties are mainly dependent on the used aggregates, they can vary in a large range. Typical values are: heat conductivity: 0.8 - 1.2 W/mK specific heat capacity: 850 - 1050 J/kgK Usage The main use of asphalt is the creation of pavements like roads or airfields. Due to it's physical properties, it can be used as a robust basement as well as a high-load surface. Manufacturing The manufacturing of asphalt is done in several steps: predose:...

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Hydrodesulfurization

HydrodesulfurizationHydrodesulfurization (HDS) or Hydrotreater is a catalytic chemical process widely used to remove sulfur compounds from refined petroleum products such as gasoline or petrol, jet fuel, kerosene, diesel fuel, and fuel oils. The purpose of removing the sulfur is to reduce the sulfur dioxide emissions that result from using those fuels in automotive vehicles, aircraft, railroad locomotives, ships, gas or oil burning power plants, residential and industrial furnaces, and other forms of fuel combustion. Another important reason for removing sulfur from the intermediate product naphtha streams within a petroleum refinery is that...

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History of the petroleum industry and refining

Brief history of the petroleum industry and petroleum refining Prior to the 19th century, petroleum was known and utilized in various fashions in Babylon, Egypt, China, Persia, Rome and Azerbaijan. However, the modern history of the petroleum industry is said to have begun in 1846 when Abraham Gessner of Nova Scotia, Canada discovered how to produce kerosene from coal. Shortly thereafter, in 1854, Ignacy Lukasiewicz began producing kerosene from hand-dug oil wells near the town of Krosno, now in Poland. The first large petroleum refinery was built in Ploesti, Romania in 1856 using the abundant oil available in Romania. In North America,...

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