Design of a Nuclear Power Plant for a LOCA Nuclear power plants are designed with the capability to safely shut-down following a number of hypothetical accident scenarios. One of those accidents is the rupture of a pipe in the reactor coolant system (RCS). Such a rupture would result in a loss of coolant accident (LOCA), […]
The Process Safety Management rule (PSM), OSHA 1910.119, was implemented in the early 90’s, more than 20 years ago. Implementation was driven by a number of tragic accidents in the process industry. However, despite the long history of the rule and multiple preventable, catastrophic incidents, many companies still have not fully implemented PSM. Companies that […]
Becht Engineering personnel have significant experience in serving as Expert Witnesses for a variety of legal matters. However, litigation can be costly, time consuming and often times the outcome is unpredictable. It should be avoided if at all possible through implementation of proper controls and oversight. A much better strategy than after the fact litigation […]
Nuclear power plants are designed to be capable of a safe shut-down in case of a large design-basis tornado or hurricane. The magnitude of the postulated design-basis tornado or hurricane is such that there is less than 1 in 10 million chance (1E-7) per year and per reactor that it would be exceeded. This probability […]
Gulf Coast Refinery Turnaround Becht Engineering mobilized Advisors to Louisiana to supplement a Client’s operations organization during a 45-day, fourth quarter 2015 turnaround. The planned outage included cleaning the pyro-fractionator coke fines, replacing the internals of a 5-stage gas compressor, cleaning, inspecting and making tie-ins for a flare recovery system, complete re-traying of an ethylene […]
Recently, a Becht Inspection Planner was preparing the Inspection Turnaround Plan for a client’s HF Alkylation Unit. When reviewing the unit’s equipment histories the Planner found documentation stating the Iso-Sidecut Receiver (14’X30’ @ 30ft elevation) had scattered hydrogen blisters on one elliptical head from the past two inspection reports. The inspection recommendations were to monitor […]
Natural gas costs have decreased substantially relative to fuel oil over the past few years because of the major gas production increase due to fracking. This has led some fuel oil consumers to consider spending capital to allow a switch to natural gas. A Becht Engineering client, Coopers Creek Chemical, Inc., in Conshohocken, PA, requested […]
