Common causes of overpressure
below is a list of Common causes of overpressure in process operation.
- Utility failures, including:
- General power failure
- Partial power failure
- Loss of instrument air
- Loss of cooling water
- Loss of steam
- Loss of fuel gas or fuel oil.
- Loss of cooling duty, caused by:
- Loss of quenching medium
- Air cooled exchanger failure
- Loss of cold feed
- Loss of top or intermediate reflux
- External fire
- Mechanical equipment failure
- Exchanger tube rupture
- Upstream pressure relief
- Runaway chemical reaction
- Blocked outlets, such as:
- Blocked liquid outlet
- Blocked vapor outlet
- Thermal expansion
- Abnormal heat input
- Abnormal vapor input
- Loss of absorbent flow
- Entrance of volatile material
- Accumulation of non-condensables
- Valve malfunction, such as
- Check valve malfunction
- Inadvertent valve operation (open/close/bypass)
- Control valve failure fully open
- Control valve failure fully closed.
- Process control failure
- Human error.
Any of the above causes warrant the installation of pressure relief instruments such as relief valves or bursting disks.
keywords; Potential causes of overpressure, common causes of overpressure
Useful software
Relief valve sizing calculator by Webbusterz engineering
