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Consider
Bottom
Venting
for
Reactive
Liquids Kenneth L. Walter
When a liquid in a vessel
can undergo an exothermic
and Victor H. Edwards,
Kvaerner Engineers
runaway chemical reaction,
and Constructors
bottom venting may provide
safer and less expensive
emergency relief than top
HAVE
THESE
CAUSE THEY OFFER A NUMBER OF ADVANTAGES FOR
ON TOP-VENTING
Step 2: Develop a preliminary qualitative design of types of venting systems. Review the results and select the
bottom-venting system. best pressure relief venting system. Go to Step 7.
If you are new to pressure relief system engineering, Step 7: Complete detailed engineering design of the
additional reading is advisable, such as the API Guide- selected type of pressure relief venting system. Document
lines (12, 13, 14), a CCPS monograph (15), and the book this design. Solicit review of the design by a competent
on reactive relief (6). Then, make the following choices: peer. Conduct an engineering safety review of the design.
a. Where will the bottom-venting relief device be lo- Revise the design as needed.
cated? On a nozzle on the bottom of the vessel? On top of Step 8: Order appropriate relief device(s), inspect and
a dip tube that reaches to near the bottom of the vessel? test device(s), and then install the new pressure relief sys-
Or elsewhere? tem. Do likewise for ancillary equipment, such as the re-
b. What type of relief device will be used? Pressure re- lief effluent-treatment system.
lief valve? Rupture disk? Rupture pin? Rupture disk be- Step 9: Inspect relief systems during the prestartup
neath a relief valve? safety review to assure that designs are implemented and
c. Where will the outlet piping discharge from the relief installed properly. Start up and run unit.
device? To the deck? To a relief effluent-handling system?
d. Is two-phase, vapor/liquid relief likely to occur? If Design hints
so, a vapor/liquid separator will probably be needed (16). 1. For vessels that would normally have a vapor space
e. Will a quench liquid be needed to stop the runaway above the reactive liquid, top venting can often be made
reaction, or can the reaction be allowed to run its course to be vapor-only relief by selecting an appropriately low
(17, 18, 19)? If a quench liquid needs to be mixed with maximum liquid level in the vessel. This greatly decreas-
the vented liquid, should an active quench liquid-injection es the cost of the pressure relief system. For nonfoamy
system be used, or will it suffice to use passive mixing in liquids with a viscosity less than 100 cP, the maximum al-
the quench tank? lowable liquid level for either reactive or external heating
f. If flammable vapors are released adjacent to the pro- may be estimated using the DIERS disengagement criteri-
tected vessel, are there ignition sources in the area? If the on (3, 15).
vented vapors are toxic or flammable, will they need 2. When the relief systems controlling design scenario
treatment? If so, what is the best treatment system (active is external fire exposure to a process vessel that results in
scrubber, passive scrubber, flare, thermal oxidizer, cat- a runaway chemical reaction, consider measures such as
alytic oxidizer, etc.)? NFPA-recommended water spray, NFPA-recommended
g. Would it be advisable to install an instrumented drainage, and NFPA-recommended insulation to reduce
dump system in parallel with a PBVR system? Should the the external heat input by fire. These steps reduce the size
passive system be augmented by injecting inert gas early of the required relief system; they may also increase the
during the event? This gas would accelerate flow to the allowable liquid level in the vessel. They also decrease
bottom dump before the pressure generated by the react- the risk of a boiling liquid expanding vapor explosion
ing, vaporizing liquid is high enough to open the passive (BLEVE) of the protected vessel.
device and drive liquid from the vessel. 3. Modeling of a runaway reaction requires a kinetic
Step 3: Develop a preliminary qualitative design of model that fits reliable measurements of the reaction ki-
top-venting system. netic data (such as concentration vs. time for every chem-
Use a procedure analogous to that in Step 2 for the ical species in the reaction, plus temperature and pressure
bottom-venting system. vs. time). The kinetic model should be based on data that
Step 4: Compare the preliminary designs; if possible, cover the range of composition, catalyst characteristics,
make a choice. temperature, and pressure that would occur with an actual
Are there any special characteristics of the particular relief event in the full-scale equipment.
reactive liquid and protected vessel that make for a clear 4. Because runaway reactions lead to significant temper-
choice? For example: Are there major differences in the ature increases, pressure relief events caused by them may
safety or exposure to vapors, residues, or contaminated occur over a wide range of temperatures. Therefore, model
equipment? Does the size and footprint of the relief vent- the temperature dependence of liquid-phase properties such
ing and effluent treatment system conform to the avail- as density, heat capacity, heat of vaporization, and viscosity,
able space? as well as the temperature and pressure dependence of
If a choice is clear, go to Step 5. If not, go to Step 6. vapor-phase properties such as density and heat capacity.
Step 5: Develop a quantitative design of the selected 5. If design conditions should assure all-vapor venting
venting system. Review the results to be sure that the cho- for the top venting design cases, then the appropriate
sen selection still appears to be the correct one. Go to nozzle flow equations from the API guidelines can be
Step 7. used to predict the venting rate through a given relief de-
Step 6: Develop quantitative process designs of both vice orifice (12, 14).
Percent
Reactant Conversion, %
the liquid remaining in the cooler, not the conversion of 60
Cumulative Liq. Vented, %
the initial liquid, since some A is vented with the vapor); Liquid Depth, % Full
(4) cumulative Liquid A vented (percent of that initially
in cooler); and (5) liquid depth (percent full). 40
Because the cooler is nearly full of liquid, the set pres-
sure is reached in just less than 0.5 s. The relief valve 20
quickly pops open to vent a small amount of vapor and
then quickly recloses, since the pressure falls rapidly. The
simulation closes the relief valve when the blowdown 0
pressure is reached, and then reopens it when the set pres- 0 100 200 300 400 500
sure is again achieved. It takes nearly 200 dimensionless Time, time/time to Pset
time units before a total of 1 lb of vapor has been vapor-
ized (out of the 826 lb of liquid initially blocked in). Dur- Figure 2. Bottom venting: vertical one-pass heat exchanger.
ing this time, the temperature rises about 21% and the re-
actant conversion is about 0.5%. At this point, the rate of
heat input due to the reaction is 13% of the total heat 91%. Even at this high conversion, the reaction heat input
input. The pressure rapidly rises to the set pressure and has risen to only 17% of the total. The relief valve contin-
falls back many times during this period. The pressure ues its opening/closing cycle, since the vent rate is insuf-
shown on the graph is actually the low-point pressure ficient to keep the pressure continuously above the blow-
reached after the valve recloses. This pressure curve down pressure.
steadily rises as the vapor volume in the cooler increases. Bottom venting:
Up to about 400 dimensionless time units, there is very A liquid-trim relief valve containing an F orifice is
little reactant conversion or drop in liquid level. mounted on the bottom head.
The peak pressure and the peak relief rate (46,000 lb/h) Figure 2 shows dimensionless values of key variables
are achieved at 630 dimensionless time units, or just less resulting from the numerical FORTRAN simulation. Vari-
than 5 min. At this point, the liquid level is about 67% of ables are defined in the figure.
full, the conversion is 26% in the remaining liquid, and The simulation proceeds identically with the top-vent-
36% of the original liquid has been vented. The percent- ing scenario until the relief valve first opens. From this
ages of liquid level and venting do not sum to 100%, be- point on, there is a dramatic difference. The valve does
cause the liquid continues to swell as the temperature rises. not continually pop open and close, as it did for top vent-
At this point, only about 15% of the total heat input comes ing. At low overpressures, it is only slightly open. This is
from the heat of reaction, even though the temperature has because a liquid-trim valves relief flow is proportional to
doubled to over 300C. The simulation model accounts for the overpressure. Although the pressure does drop below
the fire heat-input dropping as the liquid-wetted area falls. the blowdown pressure and close the valve, the pressure
The simulation actually began with the smallest D swings are much smaller, even for systems like this ex-
orifice relief valve, but when the maximum pressure ex- changer that have small vapor volumes. The pressure in
ceeded the 21% overpressure allowable for a fire scenario, the coolers vapor space remains relatively constant over
the next larger orifice was tried. Eventually, the N orifice short periods. Over longer periods, it slowly increases
was the first for which the maximum allowable overpres- until all the liquid has vented.
sure in the vessel was not exceeded during the simulation. At a dimensionless time of 200, 17% of the liquid has
The simulation stops at about 1,075 dimensionless already been vented. The temperature has risen 22% and
time units, or about 8.4 min, when the liquid level falls to the conversion is about 0.5%; 13% of the total heat input
zero. There is still about 4% of the initial liquid left in the rate is from the exothermic reaction heat.
piping; however, this endpoint is selected for comparison As in the top-venting case, the simulation stops when
to the bottom venting case. At this point, the temperature the liquid level falls to zero, but, in this case, only 440 di-
has continued to rise to 314C and the conversion exceeds mensionless time units were required, or 3.4 min. The
1,300 gal reactor; 960 gal fill volume; set pressure of 30 psig
179 145