Implementing an Equipment Health Monitoring System (EHMS) in a coker facility can significantly help refinery managers and coker-unit supervisors to better identify, track, and plan remediation measures to address coker vessel cracks, bulges, repairs, or to change parameters for improved economics. An EHMS can be used on a variety of pressure vessels as well as other industrial equipment, to maximize safety, reliability and profitability.
Our Equipment Health Monitoring Systems have helped many clients defer their coke drum replacement for over 10 years (a cost of approximately $100MM). We have also leveraged our EHMS information to assist clients by innovating new coke drum designs, understanding which variables affect damage the most, and determining to what extent operators can exercise control over the life and life extension of their coke drums.
Stress Engineering Services began installing Equipment Health Monitoring Systems during the 1990s to help verify the finite element models and to provide real world data to characterize what was really happening to the vessel strains during operation.
Over the years, we have worked on several coke drum projects involving more than 140 coke drums and currently have EHMSs in more than 30 cokers. To date, we have installed more than 81 Health Monitoring Systems and monitored an estimated 30,000 cycles. As a result, our extensively populated database serves as a powerful solution tool for refiners worldwide.
The database and statistical calculations are based on real, measured data that are physics based. In addition, our advanced numerical analysis techniques, such as finite element analyses and cutting-edge fracture mechanics (supported by actual measured EHMS data), allows for impartial, data-driven decisions to be made.
An EHMS can be tailored to any industrial application, and the relevant KPIs can be delivered quickly to a variety of systems, including dashboards, automated e-mail notification, existing business systems such as DCS, SAP, Meridium, among others, and even Twitter to those socially inclined. Finally, it provides faster time to insight and faster time to actionable improvement.
Our expertise not only includes coke drums, but data-centric systems such as Integrity Operating Windows (IOWs), Auto Refrigeration and Brittle Fracture, Process Hazard Safety Analyses, and enhancements to Risk Based Inspection schemes, which do not inherently consider how risks change as process conditions and the health of the equipment changes.
NeoSight® compiles the collected information from your coke drums and compares it with your past results, and the results from comparable sites around your company to help you make better-informed decisions — both short-term and long-term.
If you would like more information on Stress Engineering Services, please call us at 281.955.2900, or complete the following form and one of our representatives contact you shortly. For a complete listing of contact information, visit our Locations page.
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