PiperAlpha: 20 Years on
On 6 July 1988, at about 10.00pm, Occidental's Piper Alpha platform, operating 120 miles off the north east coast of Scotland, exploded in a ball of flames 120m high. 167 people died and many others were horrifically injured as they jumped or fell into the sea 30m below. The insured loss was £1.7 billion. Lord Cullen's ensuing inquiry revealed a catalogue of management failings, as well as construction, engineering and operational inadequacies that would be inconceivable today.
Science of decommissioning
Difficult economic conditions are impacting process plants, leading to redundant assets and a requirement for decommissioning. Richard Vann looks at the issues
ICL Plastics disaster
With the publication last month of Lord Gill's inquiry report into the ICL Plastics Glasgow disaster, Brian Tinham reviews the lessons to be learned for plant engineers everywhere.
Flixborough revisited
At about 5.00pm on Saturday 1 June 1974, the Nypro plant at Flixborough near Scunthorpe, manufacturing caprolactam for nylon, exploded. 28 people lost their lives, 53 workers were hospitalised, and 1,821 houses and 167 shops and factories were damaged as the blast wave, felt more than four miles away, ripped through the community. Had the plant office block been occupied, the figures for deaths and injuries would have been far, far worse. The ensuing fires burned for 10 days and £250 million of plant assets (in today's terms) were reduced to twisted metal.
Bellows baloney
Contrary to popular misconception, metal bellows expansion joints are as useful as any other of the tools in the plant engineer's armoury - provided good mechanical engineering practice is followed. So says bellows manufacturer Teddington Engineered Solutions, the firm whose predecessor's equipment was linked to the Flixborough disaster 34 years ago.
Bright sparks
Skanska and Volvo Construction Equipment have been testing the viability of an ‘electric site’ at a quarry near Gothenburg, Sweden. The results are in...
Going underground
What keeps London Underground's head of operational engineering awake at night? Top of Maurice Poole's list is the competence of project and maintenance engineering people - across all the professional sectors. That's not just in his own organisation, but throughout the infrastructure companies (Tubelines and Metronet, the latter now in administration), currently upgrading the network, and main contractors, such as Balfour Beatty.
40 metres under
Experience, sound engineering and better sensing technologies have together transformed the effectiveness of the Channel Tunnel's waste water plant. Not only has its dedicated water treatment works near Dover been rendered redundant and now decommissioned, but reliability of the tunnel's water quality monitoring equipment has been improved and maintenance requirements cut by 75%.
Thwaites green upgrade is picture of efficiency
Yellow dump truck manufacturer Thwaites' paint line has been refurbished – and improved its efficiency and environmental sustainability on the way.
When old meets new
When it comes to refurbishing plant, it makes a lot of sense to consider its operating conditions today, not just those when it was installed. Brian Tinham takes sound engineering advice from David Bates