Case Study - Venturi Top  Zinifex Hobart Smelter Right click here and choose "save target as" to download a printable pdf file of this page.... Finite Elements: combined 26 years of process plant engineering experience, with over 10 years of in-house experience in the use of Finite Element Analysis (FEA), to fundamentally and cost effectively redesign a Venturi Quench Tower Top. Removed the need for expensive yearly shutdown inspection. Cost less then $50,000 in Finite Element Analysis, design and EPCM (Engineering Procure Contract Management) fees. Solved significant intrinsic design flaws. Finite Elements provided the: design development, detail design, procurement, and installation management during a 5 day, 24 hour shutdown. Finite Elements: is a specialist supplier of Finite Element Analysis and Computational Flow Dynamics services; provides an innovative approach to engineering design in industrial environments with the support of engineering experience and advanced modelling and computational tools; is an experienced supplier of project management, concept development, shutdown and commissioning services; is in the business of industrial process re-engineering innovative design. One of the often unrecognised but significant costs facing heavy industry is the cost of ignoring innovation. Most organisations run tried and tested technology, they instigate advanced quality assurance and risk minimisation processes, and engineering professionals. Still they are dogged by costly repetitive maintenance and process problems. Other companies have developed an appreciation for the enormous impact that these issues are having on their profit line and have initiated change. They have begun to support their engineering with more innovative practices. We need look no further than Zinifex Hobart Smelter to find a good example. Three years ago the Zinifex Hobart Smelter installed a new Venturi Quench Tower Top in the gas purification section of the roaster. The tower top, which has the job of cooling and scrubbing gases that come off the roaster, is a section of plant that is critical to the production process and is supposed to have a maintenance free life of 6 or more years. Within the first year of operation the tower top had suffered significant corrosion, requiring temporary repair. Condition monitoring of the tower required an expensive roaster shutdown and significant plant disassembly. Further, the water jacket cooling system precluded external ultra sonic "skin" thickness checks. It was suspected that the water flows within the jacketed top were poorly distributed leading to poor and exacerbated corrosion rates. Finite Elements checked the water distribution using ultra sonic measuring equipment (which could be used for this purpose) and proved the flow distribution to be a problem. To overcome the corrosion problems, a new top, of more corrosion resistant materials (Hastelloy C), was scheduled for installation in the forthcoming shutdown. However, the fundamental design flaws of poor water flow and inability to perform external ultrasonic "skin thickness testing, would have remained. Insightfully, the Zinifex Roast Department Asset Manager took the bold step to select a film cooling system in preference to the original jacketed system. To minimise the implementation risk he selected Finite Elements to undertake the design development. Finite Elements found itself on familiar ground. We were to undertake design development, of plant which was critical to the production process, in preparation for a shutdown, with substantial cost implications if the new design was unsuccessful. It was not the Finite Element Analysis or the engineering experience alone that produced an innovative, eloquent and highly successful result. It was the innovative process of trial and error in the modelled environment that enabled the Finite Elements team to both better understand the process and to explore ideas cost effectively and safely. The real innovation in this project was the ability to pose questions, answer them in the real environment in a grounded, practical and experienced manner. The computer simulation and computational technology is a fundamental enabling device for such innovative processes. This is an era where international competition and environmental legislation place enormous pressure on productivity and compliance. It is also a time when your competitors are switching on to the cost of effectiveness of computer simulation supported innovation. Can you afford to ignore these approaches? p   613 + 6264 2975 f   613 + 6264 3130 info@finiteelements.com.au Finite Elements (Australia) Pty Ltd established since 1993. ABN: 36 060 076 806