Failure modes and effects analysis of a coal-slurry preheater
The Fossil Energy performance assurance program is concerned with the application of reliability, safety, and quality assurance techniques in the design and operation of the pilot plants and demonstration plants that exist or are being planned as part of the US Department of Energy fossil energy conversion programs. This report involves the application of one technique, failure modes and effects analysis (FMEA), on the safety and reliability analysis of the coal slurry preheater, a critical component in a typical coal direct liquefaction plant. The analysis identifies 55 potential failure modes. Fourteen of these events, if they should occur, would result in losses of sufficient magnitude to require special consideration in the design or operating phase to assure control of risk at an acceptable level. The report concludes that the FMEA could be a valuable tool in the identification of critical components for coal conversion systems. For maximum effect, FMEA needs to be used during the initial design phase. Its principal value is to determine high-risk failure modes, which could have unacceptable impacts on system safety and reliability/availability. The usefulness of FMEA will be improved if it is supplemented by the development of a failure data base; this data base could also be of value in selected cases as input to a more detaled technique such as fault-tree analysis.
- Research Organization:
- Oak Ridge National Lab., TN (USA)
- DOE Contract Number:
- W-7405-ENG-26
- OSTI ID:
- 6180066
- Report Number(s):
- ORNL/TM-7664; ON: DE81030425
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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