Sofronas, A.
Consulting Engineer, Houston, Texas
Tony Sofronas, D. Eng, was the worldwide lead mechanical engineer for ExxonMobil Chemicals before retiring. He now owns Engineered Products, which provides consulting and engineering seminars on machinery and pressure vessels. Dr. Sofronas has authored two engineering books and numerous technical articles on analytical methods.
In the practice of engineering, we sometimes wish for better hindsight or foresight.
Periodically, I receive questions from engineers around the world on why a piece of critical machinery is vibrating excessively.
A catastrophic failure is defined (for this article) as a failure where lives have been lost and human causes have been a factor.
When equipment fails, it indicates weak points and usually exposes the cause(s) of the failure.
Vibrating equipment can be machines, such as vibrating screens, conveyor pans or a combination of both, that are designed to transport, sort or dry materials.
When a vessel containing a flammable liquid under pressure (such as those in an LNG road tanker truck) ruptures and ignites, a vapor fireball explosion can occur.
During an engineer’s career, many interesting questions come up that may not have a ready or good answer.
Steam boiler explosions happen all over the world, as an internet search will reveal.
Heat exchangers have multiple tubes with fluid passing through and over them that either heats or cools another fluid.
Hydrotesting is performed on piping and vessels to verify their integrity.