Combustible Dust Testing

Laboratory testing to quantify dust explosion and reactivity hazards

Safety Data Sheets

Develop critical safety data for inclusion in SDS documents

Gas and Vapor

Laboratory testing to quantify explosion hazards for vapor and gas mixtures

UN-DOT
Classification of hazardous materials subject to shipping and storage regulations
Hydrogen
Testing and consulting on the explosion risks associated with devices and processes which use or produce hydrogen
Safety Data Sheets

Develop critical safety data for inclusion in SDS documents

Thermal Stability

Safe storage or processing requires an understanding of the possible hazards associated with sensitivity to variations in temperature

Adiabatic Calorimetry
Data demonstrate the consequences of process upsets, such as failed equipment or improper procedures, and guide mitigation strategies including Emergency Relief System (ERS) design
Reaction Calorimetry
Data yield heat and gas removal requirements to control the desired process chemistry
Battery Safety

Testing to support safe design of batteries and electrical power backup facilities particularly to satisfy UL9540a ed.4

Safety Data Sheets

Develop critical safety data for inclusion in SDS documents

Cable Testing
Evaluate electrical cables to demonstrate reliability and identify defects or degradation
Equipment Qualification (EQ)
Testing and analysis to ensure that critical equipment will operate under adverse environmental conditions
Water Hammer
Analysis and testing to identify and prevent unwanted hydraulic pressure transients in process piping
Acoustic Vibration
Identify and eliminate potential sources of unwanted vibration in piping and structural systems
Gas & Air Intrusion
Analysis and testing to identify and prevent intrusion of gas or air in piping systems
ISO/IEC 17025:2017

Fauske & Associates fulfills the requirements of ISO/IEC 17025:2017 in the field of Testing

ISO 9001:2015
Fauske & Associates fulfills the requirements of ISO 9001:2015
Dust Hazards Analysis
Evaluate your process to identify combustible dust hazards and perform dust explosion testing
On-Site Risk Management
On-site safety studies can help identify explosibility and chemical reaction hazards so that appropriate testing, simulations, or calculations are identified to support safe scale up
DIERS Methodology
Design emergency pressure relief systems to mitigate the consequences of unwanted chemical reactivity and account for two-phase flow using the right tools and methods
Deflagrations (Dust/Vapor/Gas)

Properly size pressure relief vents to protect your processes from dust, vapor, and gas explosions

Effluent Handling

Pressure relief sizing is just the first step and it is critical to safely handle the effluent discharge from an overpressure event

FATE™ & Facility Modeling

FATE (Facility Flow, Aerosol, Thermal, and Explosion) is a flexible, fast-running code developed and maintained by Fauske and Associates under an ASME NQA-1 compliant QA program.

Mechanical, Piping, and Electrical
Engineering and testing to support safe plant operations and develop solutions to problems in heat transfer, fluid, flow, and electric power systems
Hydrogen Safety
Testing and consulting on the explosion risks associated with devices and processes which use or produce hydrogen
Thermal Hydraulics
Testing and analysis to ensure that critical equipment will operate under adverse environmental conditions
Nuclear Safety
Our Nuclear Services Group is recognized for comprehensive evaluations to help commercial nuclear power plants operate efficiently and stay compliant
Radioactive Waste
Safety analysis to underpin decomissioning process at facilities which have produced or used radioactive nuclear materials
Adiabatic Safety Calorimeters (ARSST and VSP2)

Low thermal inertial adiabatic calorimeters specially designed to provide directly scalable data that are critical to safe process design

Other Lab Equipment and Parts for the DSC/ARC/ARSST/VSP2 Calorimeters

Products and equipment for the process safety or process development laboratory

FERST

Software for emergency relief system design to ensure safe processing of reactive chemicals, including consideration of two-phase flow and runaway chemical reactions

FATE

Facility modeling software mechanistically tracks transport of heat, gasses, vapors, and aerosols for safety analysis of multi-room facilities

Blog

Our highly experienced team keeps you up-to-date on the latest process safety developments.

Process Safety Newsletter

Stay informed with our quarterly Process Safety Newsletters sharing topical articles and practical advice.

Resources

With over 40 years of industry expertise, we have a wealth of process safety knowledge to share.

Recent Posts

Vent Sizing (VSP2) User Forum – Optimizing Temperature Measurement

Posted by Fauske & Associates on 05.28.14

By Charlie Askonas, Chief Testing & Safety Engineer, Fauske & Associates, LLC

Background

The Vent Sizing Package 2™ (VSP2™) is a low thermal inertia adiabatic calorimeter used for process hazard characterization that utilizes state-of-the-art DIERS technology to obtain critical upset process design data.  It is the commercial version of the original DIERS bench scale apparatus developed by Fauske & Associates, LLC's (FAI)VSP2 illustration

Its versatile design allows the VSP2 to simulate upset (abnormal) conditions which might lead to a runaway chemical reaction (e.g. loss of cooling, loss of stirring, mischarge of reagents, mass-loaded upset, batch contamination, fire exposure heating, etc). Resulting temperature and pressure rise rates are directly scalable since it is a low thermal inertia (phi-factor) apparatus. FAI not only utilizes the VSP2™ in our fully equipped hazards laboratory but we also manufacture and sell the calorimeter for use by our clients.

Benefit

The VSP2 utilizes established DIERS technology to identify and quantify process safety hazards so they can be prevented or accommodated by process design.  
Test data includes adiabatic rates of temperature and pressure change which, due to the low thermal inertia, can be directly applied to process scale to determine relief vent sizes, quench tank designs and other relief system design parameters related to process safety management.  Adiabatic data obtained with the VSP2 can be used to characterize reactive chemical and consequences that could occur due to process upset conditions.

Optimizing Temperature Measurement

To get the best temperature readings from VSP2™ tests, it is important to remember to ground the sheath of each element of the guard heater to the test cell fill line as shown in Figure 1.  Both the sheath of the lid and side elements of the guard heater should be jumpered using alligator clips to the test cell fill line.  This eliminates electrical interference from the heaters with the test cell thermocouple.  In addition (as per the VSP2™ Manual), the containment vessel should be grounded to the VSP2™ control box chassis.  Finally, the shields of the thermocouple cables where they plug in to the thermocouple gland should also be grounded to the outside of the containment vessel.  These measures help assure noise free temperature measurements.  If the FAI Super Magnetic stirrer is being used, the thermocouple cables should be oriented radially away from the containment vessel and kept above the Super Magnetic Stirrer.  This avoids interference from the strong magnetic field of the stirrer.  

Features

The versatile configurations offered by the VSP2 design directly simulates process conditions including:

  • Loss of cooling or agitation
  • Accumulation or mischarge of reactants
  • Contamination of batch
  • Thermally initiated decomposition
  • Resident incubation time
  • In-situ liquid/gas dosing or sampling

Applications 

Use of the VSP2™ can help users obtain complete chemical system data such as:

  • Low thermal inertia testing allows data to be directly applied to process scale
  • Temperature and pressure rise rates applicable to relief system design "Based on DIERS two-phase flow technology, recognized by OSHA as an example of “good engineering practice”
  • Many testing configurations
    -    Solids, liquids or two phase mixtures 
    -    Closed or open (vented) tests
    -    Scaled blowdown simulation
    -    Test cells are available in 304 & 316 SS, Hastelloy C, Titanium and glass
  • Accurate adiabatic data
    -    Onset temperature
    -    Total adiabatic temperature rise (ΔTad)
    -    Heat of reaction or mixing
    -    Vapor pressure data
    -    Time to maximum rate (tmr)
    -    Self-accelerating decomposition temperature (SADT)
  • Relief vent sizing
  • Quench tank design
  • Effluent handling
  • Critical temperature
  • Effect of two-phase flow

FAI also created PrEVent software to allow users to implement practical emergency vent sizing using industry recognized methodology.  It applies DIERS methodology (including the Leung-Omega and Fauske methods) for reactive chemistry and API 520/2000 or NFPA 30 for non-reactive systems.

For more information on the VSP2 or Adiabatic Calorimetry and Relief System Design, please contact Jeff Griffin at griffin@fauske.com or 630-887-5278

The Versatile VSP2 – Still Cooking After 26 Years

 

Topics: Process Safety, Process Hazards Analysis, VSP2, DIERS, Adiabatic Calorimetry, Reactive Chemicals

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