Ruptured Refinery Bellows
An engineer was seriously burned when a thirty-nine inch expansion joint ruptured while workman were performing temporary repairs at a Texas refinery. The ruptured bellows spilled hot catalyst from a fluidizer catalytic cracking unit on the deck – on which the engineer had to cross to reach safety.
We were asked to perform a failure analysis on the bellows. We determined that:
- The stainless steel had not been heat-treated properly
- The steel was sensitized during fabrication and made susceptible to corrosive attack
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We Perform Failure Analysis on Equipment including Bellows, Piping, Valves and Vessels.