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Pressure relief valves or other relieving devices are used to protect piping and equipment against excessive over-pressure. Proper selection, use, location, and maintenance of relief devices are essential to protect personnel and equipment as well as to comply with codes and laws. Determination of the maximum relief required may be difficult. Loads for complex systems are determined by conservative assumptions and detailed analysis. By general assumption, two unrelated emergency conditions caused by unrelated equipment failures or operator error will not occur simultaneously (no double jeopardy). The sequence of events must be considered. The development of relief loads requires the engineer to be familiar with overall process design, including the type of pump drives used, cooling water source, spares provided, plant layout, instrumentation, and emergency shutdown philosophy.
This section suggests methods to calculate relief capacity for most emergency conditions, including fire. A common reference for determining individual relieving rates is contained in Section 3 of API RP 521. The design of the proper relieving device must take into consideration all of the following upset conditions for the individual equipment item if such upset can occur. Each upset condition must be carefully evaluated to determine the "worst case" condition which will dictate the relieving device capacity.
Blocked Discharge
The outlet of almost any vessel, pump, compressor, fired heater, or other equipment item can be blocked by mechanical failure or human error. In this case, the relief load is usually the maximum flow which the pump, compressor, or other flow source produces at relief conditions.
Fire Exposure
Fire is one of the least predictable events which may occur in a gas processing facility, but is a condition that may create the greatest relieving requirements. If fire can occur on a plant-wide basis, this condition may dictate the sizing of the entire relief system; however, since equipment may be dispersed geographically, the effect of fire exposure on the relief system may be limited to a specific plot area. Vapor generation will be higher in any area which contains a large number of uninsulated vessels. Various empirical equations have been developed to determine relief loads from vessels exposed to fire. Formula selection varies with the system and fluid considered. Fire conditions may overpressure vapor-filled, liquidfilled, or mixed-phase systems.
Tube Rupture
When a large difference exists between the design pressure of the shell and tube sides of an exchanger (usually a ratio of 1.5 to 1 or greater), provisions are required for relieving the low pressure side. Normally, for design, only one tube is considered to rupture. Relief volume for one tube rupture can be calculated using appropriate sizing equations in this section. When a cool media contacts a hot stream, the effects of flashing should be considered. Also the possibility of a transient overpressure caused by the sudden release of vapor into an all-liquid system should be considered.
Control Valve Failure
The failure positions of instruments and control valves must be carefully evaluated. In practice, the control valve may not fail in the desired position. A valve may stick in the wrong position, or a control loop may fail. Relief protection for these factors must be provided. Relief valve sizing requirements for these conditions should be based on flow coefficients (manufacturer data) and pressure differentials for the specific control valves and the facility involved.
Thermal Expansion
If isolation of a process line on the cold side of an exchanger can result in excess pressure due to heat input from the warm side, then the line or cold side of the exchanger should be protected by a relief valve. If any equipment item or line can be isolated while full of liquid, a relief valve should be provided for thermal expansion of the contained liquid. Low process temperatures, solar radiation, or changes in atmospheric temperature can necessitate thermal protection. Flashing across the relief valve needs to be considered.
Utility Failure
Loss of cooling water may occur on an area-wide or plantwide basis. Affected are fractionating columns and other equipment utilizing water cooling. Cooling water failure is often the governing case in sizing flare systems. Electric power failure, similar to cooling water failure, may occur on an area-wide or plant-wide basis and may have a variety of effects. Since electric pump and air cooler fan drives are often employed in process units, a power failure may cause the immediate loss of reflux to fractionators. Motor driven compressors will also shut down. Power failures may result in major relief loads.
Instrument air system failure, whether related to electric power failure or not, must be considered in sizing of the flare system since pneumatic control loops will be interrupted. Also control valves will assume the position as specified on "loss of air" and the resulting effect on the flare system must be considered.
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