Failure of 24 Inches Blowdown Tower Inlet Nozzle Due to Cyclic Surge Forces

Abstract

Blowdown tower is one of the equipment in closed blowdown system (CBS) in Delay Coker unit in petroleum refinery. The primary intended function of the CBS is to flush out hydrocarbon vapours from coke drum using high pressure steam into blowdown tower. The system is operating in batches and cycles, due to constant operation at various temperature, pressure, and conditions, components are susceptible to various of failures including thermal fatigue, crack, corrosion, and others. Crack incident was observed on the welding of blowdown tower nozzle that connected to closed blowdown system (CBS) piping after 11 years of operation. This paper aims to study the structural integrity and risk level of the CBS system in relation to liquid level in receiving tower (blowdown tower). Dynamic piping stress analysis and Finite Element Analysis (FEA) was conducted on this line and blowdown tower nozzle to evaluate the overall material behaviour and assessed the risk of failure. The acceptance criteria of the analysis were set to be based on ASME VIII-Division 2 part 5.2.2 (Elastic Stress Analysis Method) and ASME II-part D. Findings from FEA shows that the failure occurred on the blowdown tower nozzle was due to surge pressure impact from high pressure steam flow to obstructed high liquid elevation at the inlet nozzle. The high surge pressure that happened near the nozzle has caused the stress to exceed allowable level thus initiated the crack in cyclic/ batch service. It is recommended that petroleum refinery to continuously maintain the blowdown tower level below nozzle to prevent similar phenomenon to happen in future.