Conference Papers
Catastrophic or major incidents are typically investigated immediately, but what about the near misses or minor failures that might be precursors to major incidents? Are they investigated? Major failures often do not occur as one isolated issue or event; there are often less severe precursors to a major event. This paper presents a best practice and reasons for reviewing minor equipment failures in order to avoid major events as demonstrated through the judicious analysis of minor failures. Several case histories and the lessons learned from these minor equipment failure investigations are presented to encourage investigation of what may initially appear as insignificant failures, for their value in prevention of major incidents.
Mr. Benac is a member of BakerRisk’s Materials Engineering Group. His work focuses on structural integrity and material issues, failure analysis of plant equipment, materials evaluations, and materials selection for designs. Mr. Benac has conducted hundreds of in-depth investigations and analyses of service failures and mishaps for a variety of structures for the nuclear, refining, petrochemical, and fossil-power industries. He currently supports the investigation of equipment such as pipelines, rotor shafts, valves, pumps, diesel-engine components, heat exchangers, reactor vessels, piping, compressor, and turbine blades and disks.
Mr. Benac has co-authored fifty peer-reviewed technical papers related to equipment reliability. Mr. Benac also serves as program manager for the global Ammonia & Fertilizer Joint Industry Program and subject matter expert on damage mechanisms and mitigation options for ammonia and fertilizer equipment.
As the biofuels industry continues to expand in support of global decarbonization mandates and objectives, facility owners and developers are being challenged to balance production efficiency, operational reliability, and personnel safety.
As high hazard facilities, biofuels sites should focus on developing a fire protections strategy informed by performance-based analysis so strategies implemented meet the unique challenges found at each facility.