SAFETY/LOSS PREVENTION

Performing correct initial

blowdown calculations
These guidelines can help determine peak flowrate
A. VYAS, Sharjah, United Arab Emirates

T
he primary function of blowdown without exceeding flare capacity. The cuted in two ways: zonal depressurization
is to provide equipment with the total maximum depressuring time has to or total area depressurization.
means to reduce pressure when be estimated, usually about four hours,
containment loss is unacceptable. The to empty out complete system inventory Zonal depressurization. This is
reduction in pressure compensates for the up to atmospheric pressure, considering executed based on manually selecting
increase in temperature that takes place that all blowdown sections are at nor- particular blowdown zones in the event
during fire conditions such that the coin- mal depressurization rates. The stagger- of any emergency or fire that depressur-
cident pressure and metal temperature do ing sequence depressuring details for all izes the selected blowdown zone. During
not exceed the allowable stress on equip- blowdown zones during fire has to be cal- the manually selected zonal depressur-
ment and piping. A secondary function culated in detail. ization, all other zones will be inhibited
of the blowdown system is to reduce local from depressurizing until a determined
containment loss that arises from leaks that Repressurization. Adiabatic depres- time delay has elapsed to ensure that the
may otherwise lead to escalation and the surization will lead to low temperatures in instantaneous capacity of the flare sys-
risk of catastrophic structural failure. the equipment. Once the depressurization tem will not be exceeded. Once the pre-
A consequence of blowdown is the is completed, immediate repressuring of a set time delay has elapsed, another zone
attaining of low temperature for process system from minimum design temperature would then be allowed to be depressurized
fluids and equipment. Consideration must could affect the mechanical integrity of the if selected.
be given to the auto-refrigeration effects system’s construction material. The possibil-
caused when a vessel is depressurized. ity of immediate repressurization should be Total area depressurization. This
These effects increase when the vessel is avoided by a timer device that will prevent is executed to depressurize an entire area
depressurized when there is no fire present. immediate repressurization, hence, coinci- in sequential order or staggering by open-
Consideration must also be given to the dental high pressures and low temperatures ing all blowdown valves in the quickest
temperature that will be attained by the should be avoided. As a rule, repressuring amount of time within constraints of the
blocked-in system if left to stand after iso- should be carried out in specific steps. Also, flare capacity. Time delays, as defined,
lation prior to initiating blowdown. Such you must consider the low temperatures are based on the premise that the second
conditions set the lower design condi- generated by the Joule-Thompson effect blowdown zone is the largest remaining
tions of the system. Blowdown is initiated across the repressuring valve as the respec- depressurization load. This ensures that
remotely by the operator via the emergency tive blowdown system pressure will be close the instantaneous load on the flaring
shutdown system, which will allow blow- to atmospheric pressure. system following the time delay will not
down to commence after isolation via the exceed the flare capacity.
emergency shutdown valves (ESDVs). Coincidental conditions. After com- To reduce the overall area depressuriza-
pleting the adiabatic depressurization, tion time, the blowdown zones are to be
Blowdown zone segregation and immediate repressuring of the system from interlocked such that depressurization of
staggered blowdown. The total minimum design temperature may affect the the zones is staggered. The time between
number of blowdown zones is based on mechanical integrity of the system construc- initializing the depressurization of a zone,
flowrates and area. Blowdown staggering tion; therefore, coincidental high pressure during total area depressurization, has
is determined if a fire occurs in any one of and low temperature should be avoided. The been arranged so that the flare capacity
the fire zones that needs to be depressur- repressuring step time after depressurization is never exceeded. Upon activation of
ized, immediately followed by the remain- shall be maintained such that the membrane total area depressurization, each section
ing fire zones to be depressurized in the stress limits do not exceed the 50N/mm2 of the area will be depressurized based on
controlled sequence. design conditions as per standard. staggering. All blowdown sections can be
All blowdown sections can be depres- depressurized in a controlled sequential
surized in a controlled sequential stag- Emergency depressurization. Plant staggering during an emergency situation
gering during an emergency situation emergency depressurization can be exe- without exceeding the flare capacity.
HYDROCARBON PROCESSING JUNE 2010
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 SAFETY/LOSS PREVENTION

Disposal system components a high point without a low point between

design. Depending on the process plant the concerned equipment or line and the
under consideration, a disposal system may blowdown device. On equipment (drum,
consist of a combination of the following column, etc.) having a gas device (e.g., mist
DYNA-THERM items: piping, knock-out drum, quench eliminator), they shall be installed upstream
CORPORATION drum, seal drum, flare stack, ignition sys-
tem, flare tip, and burning pit.
of the gas device. It is a common practice
to fit the BDV with limit switches indicat-
ing in the control room that the valve has
Blowdown device. The blowdown actually moved to its required position.
Founded in the late 1950’s, Dyna- device concerns the automatic or remote A standard describes two emergency
Therm enjoys a long and proven blowdown and there are two valve types: depressuring criteria that have historically
track record of excellence in • A full bore ball valve that fails open been used by the petrochemical industry.
and is specified as “tight shut-off ” with a The criteria of depressuring to only 50%
design, fabrication and exceeding minimum size of 2 in. and a restriction ori- of design pressure within 15 mins may be
customer requirements. fice installed downstream the blowdown suitable for pool fire exposure of vessels
NOT DELIVERING THE STEAM PURITY valve (BDV) and sized for the required with a wall thickness greater than 25 mm.
YOU NEED? flowrate. But it may not be suitable for thinner ves-
Whether you need a new • An on/off control valve type sized for sels, for torch fire exposures, or fire expo-
steam drum or retrofitting into the required flowrate with a mechanical sure of piping.
an existing application, our opening limiter stop. The use of vessel/piping passive fire
expertise delivers optimized A reducer is installed downstream of protection (e.g., fire-resistant insulation
the restriction orifice or control valve type or fireproofing) may reduce the temper-
solutions.
BDV followed by a manual block valve ature-rise rate of the fire-exposed equip-
full bore, ball valve, CSO having the flare ment. The analysis required to accurately
EXPERTS AT sub-header line size. The installation of determine the survivability of equipment
elbows between the restriction orifice exposed to a torch fire can be complex.
RETROFITTING and the reducer is forbidden. The blow- This dynamic analysis involves defining
E X I S T I N G down device shall always be installed on the heat flux, calculating the heat-up time
STEAM DRUMS
Antisurge valve

Flare Flare
PSV
RO
Scrubber
Process Blowdown
stream valve Process
Quality Steam Matters Sectionalization Cooler
Compressor
stream
Dyna-Therm custom designs and valve, ESDV
Sectionalization valve, ESDV
fabricates horizontal and vertical
steam purification drums for your Process stream
demanding applications. Exit Sectionalization valve, ESDV
Steam Qualities up to 99.995%. Real geometry of process segment

Blowdown
valve
Flare
Flare
PSV

PO Box 73420, Houston, TX 77273 Length

P: 281.987.0726 F: 281.987.0905
Hypothetical segment
www.DYNA-THERM.com
[email protected]
FIG. 1 Modeling the hypothetical segment used for sizing procedures.

Select 173 at www.HydrocarbonProcessing.com/RS

 SAFETY/LOSS PREVENTION

of the vessel/piping walls, changing wall • See 1 or 2 for issues regarding NE or Brittle fracture. Depressuring leads
stresses and reduced strengths. The impact NDE solenoids. in most cases to low temperatures (often
of high-rate depressuring on vessel inter- • This design option is typically only well below 0°C) within the equipment and
nals and/or a catalyst should be appro- for low-rate operational depressuring. The its related piping. This has an impact on
priately considered when establishing the use of Option 3 for high-rate emergency selecting the equipment material. After
depressuring rate. depressuring requires technician approval. emergency depressuring, operational steps
The reliability of the system shall to reestablish normal operation may lead
Reliability requirements. The include upstream equipment analysis dur- to process conditions that might not have
depressuring system design should consider ing and after emergency depressuring. The been considered in the design. For exam-
features to reduce spurious trips. Secured upstream system protected by emergency ple, quickly restarting the depressured
air supply systems should be specified for depressuring valves shall be designed to equipment without letting the equipment
each depressuring system to prevent the cope with peak depressuring (high veloci- warm up first, or using other process/util-
common-mode opening of emergency ties) and with the final end-process condi- ity streams to accelerate the start up, may
depressuring valves. tions (very low process temperatures that lead to higher stresses than the material
If sequenced depressuring is adopted, might be generated when depressured). can safely withstand at cold temperatures.
the system design shall ensure that:
• System failure cannot result in an
uncontrolled simultaneous depressuriza- Required details to start blowdown calculations
- Description of the fire /adiabatic scenarios
tion of the whole facility - Blowdown sectionalization (volume inventory)
• System failure cannot result in a situ- - Follow standards for design basis and isolation
philosophy
ation where automatic depressurization of - Manual or automatic blowdown
the installation is prevented. - Acceptance criteria for rupture

THREE OPTIONS IN EMERGENCY Reduce the Step 1

DEPRESSURING VALVE DESIGN orifice size. Calculate the size of all orifices and all peak
rates segments.
IMPACTING RELIABILITY
Evaluate the blowdown rate, preferably
1. Air fail-open valve with nor- Is the flare system No for the most hazardous blowdown section.
mally energized (NE) solenoid. capacity utilized
when adding all the
• If there is an air failure, the valve simultaneous blow-
Step 2
opens. Spurious trips can be avoided using down rates together?
Check the thickness of the vessel as well as pipe.
secured air buffer vessels. Add insulation if required.
No Yes
• If there is a power failure, the solenoid
will vent and the valve will open. Spuri- Is the blowdown Step 3
rate less than Yes Calculate the inner-wall temperature profile for all pipes
ous trips can be avoided by designating the maximum? and equipment. Use the local fire with the highest heat
power source to be uninterruptible power l- dP/ dt l flux (kW/m2).
supply (UPS). However, signal cable failure
Step 5
will result in a spurious trip. a) Decide which pipe/equipment to fire
• This design option is the most com- insulate, or
Step 4 b) Increase orifice diameter if there is
mon for high rate emergency depressuring. Is acceptance No available capacity in the flare system, or
criteria for c) Reduce system volume by relocation of
rupture met? sectionalization valves, or
2. Air fail-open valve with normally d) Increase the flare system capacity, or
de-energized (NDE) solenoid. Yes
e) Change material quality, or
f) Increase wall thickness
• If there is an air failure, the valve will
open. Spurious trips can be avoided using Step 6
secured air-buffer vessels. Calculate the minimum design temperature
(low-temperature design temperature) of the
• With the NDE design, spurious trips blowdown section and the flare system tailpipe.
due to power loss are avoided. Unless there
are alternate means to vent the emergency
depressuring actuator (e.g., manually vent- Is the Check flexibility again with basis of
ing the air supply at a field panel), NDE minimum No design calculations. Check ambient
design conditions. Check with piping whether
design use requires measures for reliable temperature low temperature limit is acceptable for
functioning of the depressuring valve dur- acceptable? low cost material or not.
ing a fire.
Yes
3. Air fail-close valve with NE or
Finish the RO design with calculated peak rate and
NDE solenoids. material selection of upstream and downstream of BDV.
• If there is an air failure, the valve will
remain closed. Since air system failures dur-
ing fire exposure may be possible, fire pro- FIG. 2 Simplified chart to perform initial blowdown calculations to find orifice size and
tecting the air system is required. minimum design temperature.

HYDROCARBON PROCESSING JUNE 2010

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SAFETY/LOSS PREVENTION

The construction of equipment materials both upstream and downstream of a depres- etry of one complete isolated segment that
shall be selected accordingly. suring device when depressuring. was protected with a relief and blowdown
The specified lower design temperature valve. Segments that represent the total
for the piping and equipment shall take Material selection. Materials shall system volume and heat-transfer areas
into account the low temperatures that can be selected taking into account how the have different wetted areas and wall thick-
be experienced by equipment and piping systems are sectionalized and depressured. ness. The hypothetical segment is used for
The temperature of process fluids should be calculation of the system pressure during
TABLE 1. General guideline for calculated as a function of pressure for each depressurization or relief. Sectionalisation
process disposal depressuring application. These tempera- valves close in emergency situations and
tures shall be compared to the vessel and blowdown valves open in fire situations.
Material Vent Flare Process Sewer piping minimum safe operating tempera- Notice that the hypothetical segment is
Process vapors ture to determine if any restrictions shall modeled with a real system volume, system
Flammable, non-toxic X X be placed on the depressuring or material outer-area without actual system inside-area
and toxic selection altered. in contact with the gas, system inside-area
Process vapors in contact with the liquid. The hypotheti-
Nonflammable X X Software modeling—real process cal segment is modeled as a cylinder. This
and toxic segment used as a hypothetical shape is specified with a diameter equal to
Process vapors situation. Fig. 1 shows the minimum the most dominating (volume) diameter of
Nonflammable X
requirements for performing proper depres- any piping item or equipment in the origi-
and nontoxic surization and fire-adiabatic calculations nal segment. The associated wall thickness
together with a procedure for sizing depres- for this diameter should be used. The cylin-
Steam X X
surization and relief systems for pressur- der length is set such that its volume equals
Sewer vapors X
ized systems exposed to fire with the use of the original segment’s volume. The liquid
Liquids computational dynamic depressurization. level is adjusted to obtain the actual liquid
Process blowdown X X Before proceeding with the fire model, some volume. The hypothetical cylinder now rep-
Thermal relief X X terminology will be defined. resents the correct system volume. However,
Process drain X the outer area of this cylinder must be cor-
Surface runoff X
Modeling process segments. A rected to the real system outer area by trial-
model (Fig. 1) is represented for real geom- and-error for the addition or subtraction of
a gas and liquid area to the segment.

HIGH ACCURACY Software and analysis. After a careful

check/analysis of input data, the depressur-
FLOW METERS ization study can be started using a compu-
tational dynamic depressuring study for fire
and adiabatic cases to determine the peak
flowrate and minimum temperature for the
individual systems, respectively. Fig. 2 illus-
trates how to perform an initial blowdown
calculation to find the correct orifice size
and minimum design temperature. HP

BIBLIOGRAPHY
American Petroleum Institute, “Guide for
Pressure-Relieving and Depressurizing Systems,”
API Recommended Practice (RP) 521, Fifth
addition, January 2007.
FOR HIGH TEMPERATURES Vyas, A., “Determining system depressurizing
requirement,” Hydrocarbon Processing, pp. 89–90,
AND HIGH PRESSURES November 2008.
– non-intrusive ultrasonic clamp-on technology www.flexim.com Salater, P., V. Overaa and E. Kjensjord, “Best
– for temperatures up to 750 °F usinfo@flexim.com Practice on Depressurization and Fire-Relief
Design,” Norsk Hydro ASA.
– independent of process pressure Nolan, D. P., Handbook of Fire and Explosion
FLEXIM AMERICAS
– multi-beam for high accuracy Corporation Protection Engineering Principles for Oil and Gas.
– wide turn down Phone: (631) 492-2300
– installation without process shut down Toll Free: 1-888-852-7473
– no maintenance
– no pressure loss Archana Ajay Vyas is a process
– standard volume calculation engineer with seven years in the oil
and gas industry. Her areas of exper-
TYPICAL APPLICATIONS: tise are flare network system design
HEAT TRANSFER OILS | BITUMEN | PITCH/TAR | COKER FEED | CRUDE OILS/SYNTHETIC and depressurization system calcula-
CRUDE | GAS OILS | REFINED PETROLEUM PRODUCTS | HOT OR TOXIC CHEMICALS tions. She earned a BE degree in chemical engineering
from GECG, University of Gujarat, India.
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