Ruptured Refinery Bellows – Failure Analysis

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:

  1. The stainless steel had not been heat-treated properly
  2. The steel was sensitized during fabrication and made susceptible to corrosive attack

 

We Perform Failure Analysis on Equipment including Bellows, Piping, Valves and Vessels.

(412) 835-5007

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