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E.S.D |
Corrosion problem eliminated by improving equipment geometry. The unit is a water cooled acid gas condenser with single large entry nozzle. A shellside mechanical failure appeared, due to fluid corrosion. The corrosion mechanism is known to be velocity dependent. For that reason, before doing a material upgrade to resolve the problem, regions of local high velocity had to be identified and avoided. Flow analysis of shellside and upstream pipework was carried out using in-house capabilities in Computational Flow Modelling to identify areas of concern. |
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CFD analysis indicated that the geometry of the inlet pipework was imposing a maldistribution upon the flow entering the inlet nozzle, and that this produced regions of extremely high velocity as the fluid entered the tube bundle. The areas of concern corresponded accurately with the pattern of corrosion observed. |
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Modelling of geometry changes local to the high velocity regions showed that the results were heavily dependent upon the exact geometry selected. A more robust solution was proposed offering even distribution at the inlet nozzle and improved impingement protection for the bundle. |
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