New Methodology for The Determination of The Failure Times in an Ammonium Carbamate Condenser

Abstract

This paper presents a new methodology to determine the optimal maintenance intervention times in the most failure prone components for an ammonium carbamate condenser. The studied condenser takes part of the process of synthesis and high-pressure recovery of synthetic urea, in a plant located in south Mexico, where the substance of the operation promotes important wear effects in industrial equipment. By implementing this methodology, we can calculate the failure times due to material wear for each individual component of de condenser, and consequently schedule specific assessment periods. For this, the minimum material thicknesses required to withstand the operating pressure are calculated according to in the American Society Mechanical Engineers (ASME,2013). The excessive maintenance expenses due to the assessment of the complete industrial equipment, can be reduced by evaluating only the necessary components that integrate the equipment, according to the determined periodicity.