Hazards Analysis, Code Compliance & Procedure Development

Services to identify process safety hazards and facilitate compliance with established standards and codes.

Combustible Dust Testing

Laboratory testing to quantify dust explosion and reactivity hazards

Flammable Gas & Vapor Testing

Laboratory testing to quantify explosion hazards for vapor and gas mixtures

Chemical Reactivity Testing

Laboratory testing to quantify reactive chemical hazards, including the possibility of material incompatibility, instability, and runaway chemical reactions

ISO Accreditation and Scope
Fauske & Associates fulfills the requirements of ISO/IEC 17025:2017 in the field of Testing
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 safety handle the effluent discharge from an overpressure event

Thermal Stability

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

UN-DOT

Classification of hazardous materials subject to shipping and storage regulations

Safety Data Sheets

Develop critical safety data for inclusion in SDS documents

Biological

Model transport of airborne virus aerosols to guide safe operations and ventilation upgrades

Radioactive

Model transport of contamination for source term and leak path factor analysis

Fire Analysis

Model transport of heat and smoke for fire analysis

Flammable or Toxic Gas

transport of flammable or toxic gas during a process upset

OSS consulting, adiabatic & reaction calorimetry and consulting

Onsite safety studies can help identify explosibility and chemical reaction hazards so that appropriate testing, simulations, or calculations are identified to support safe scale up

Mechanical, Piping, and Electrical

Engineering and testing to support safe plant operations and develop solutions to problems in heat transfer, fluid flow, electric power systems

Battery Safety

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

Hydrogen Safety

Testing and consulting on the explosion risks associated with devices and processes which use or produce hydrogen

Spent Fuel

Safety analysis for packaging, transport, and storage of spent nuclear fuel

Decommissioning, Decontamination and Remediation (DD&R)

Safety analysis to underpin decommissioning process at facilities which have produced or used radioactive nuclear materials

Laboratory Testing & Software Capabilities

Bespoke testing and modeling services to validate analysis of DD&R processes

Nuclear Overview

Our Nuclear Services Group is recognized for comprehensive evaluations to help commercial nuclear power plants operate efficiently and stay compliant.

Severe Accident Analysis and Risk Assessment

Expert analysis of possible risk and consequences from nuclear plant accidents

Thermal Hydraulics

Testing and analysis to ensure that critical equipment will operate under adverse environmental conditions

Environmental Qualification (EQ) and Equipment Survivability (ES)

Testing and analysis to ensure that critical equipment will operate under adverse environmental conditions

Laboratory Testing & Software Capabilities

Testing and modeling services to support resolution of emergent safety issues at a power plant

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.

Waterhammer Solutions and Testing

Water Systems

When fluid flow is suddenly subjected to stop or change direction, a pressure surge commonly referred to as a water hammer event will occur. The momentum of the fluid abruptly stopping creates a pressure wave that travels through the media within the pipe system. This same principle is also applicable when the flowing medium is steam rather than water. In the case of steam, the pressure surge is known as a steam hammer event. Both water and steam hammer events have the potential to cause catastrophic damage.

Fauske Associates experts can help you analyze and test Waterhammer events.

WATERHAMMER SOLUTIONS BACKGROUND
WATERHAMMER SOLUTIONS BENEFITS & EXPERTISE
WATERHAMMER TESTING BACKGROUND
WATERHAMMER TESTING BENEFITS & EXPERTISE

WATERHAMMER SOLUTIONS BACKGROUND

Waterhammer events are transmitted through the system at the speed of sound as applicable to the fluid-pipe combination (speed of sound varies with the density of the fluid). For water in a steel pipe, this is essentially the speed of sound in water (~4600 ft/s or 1400 m/s which is close to 1 mile/s). With this high transmission velocity, pipe segments are loaded in a highly transient manner causing them to shake. As a consequence, significant dynamic loads can be transmitted to the piping supports as well as the system components, i.e. valves, instrumentation, etc.

WATERHAMMER SOLUTIONS BENEFITS & EXPERTISE

A structured approach to addressing waterhammer solutions provides an efficient and cost effective and safe solution to address your waterhammer issues.

Our expert team of engineers has extensive experience addressing and resolving various types of waterhammer issues utilizing the following:

  • Analysis using key industry recognized transient analysis software including GOTHIC, owned by EPRI (Electric Power Research Institute, Inc.) and RELAP5 , a product of Idaho National Laboratories and FAI developed GW2
  • Experimental testing simulating water hammer events
  • Training on how to mitigate or resolve future water hammer issues

WATERHAMMER TESTING BACKGROUND

Our experimental facilities are designed to conduct non condensable gas-water or steam-water water hammer tests simulating conditions of interest in plants including those situations where a non-condensable gas volume is formed in the pump discharge piping. Water hammer pressures are measured during the experiments and translated to plant conditions. This data can be used to set the limits of acceptable GAS ACCUMULATION. Tests are conducted in an extended length piping configuration of the plant system and most importantly, the tests are run for a range of initial void sizes in the piping high point.

WATERHAMMER TESTING BENEFITS & EXPERTISE

Our experts have experience testing multiple components at our facilities including:

  • Different piping high point configurations in terms of riser, downcomer and high point lengths
  • Influence of a check valve and mini-flowline
  • Multiple void distribution
  • System rigidity, and flow visualization (as an aid in model development) through transparent PVC piping

Waterhammer Experiments in Support of a Feedwater Leakage Control System Modification

Waterhammer Resources

Evalutaion of Maximum Allowable Temperature for the RHR Suction Piping System When Aligned to the ECCS
Dynamic Benchmarking of Tremolo - A Program for Pipeline Two-Phase Flow Transient Analysis
Prediction of Control Valve Capacities Under Flashing Flow Conditions
Waterhammer, Column Separation, and Boiling Inside Cooling Water Systems
Waterhammer Experiments in Support of a Feedwater Leakage Control System Modification
Waterhammer in Horizontal Lines During the Voiding Phase