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HEAT EXCHANGERS
PREVENTION IS BETTER THAN CURE
Stuart Farman, PHE Service Manager and Rory MacKenzie, a business development lead, at specialist service provider OSSO, outline how a proactive
maintenance regime could take the heat off those responsible for the performance of plate heat exchangers
hey’re an essential element in many different industrial and manufacturing processes, in sectors ranging from oil and gas to whisky distilling, but have plate heat exchangers (PHEs) been taken a little for granted when a failure can have a drastic impact on production? You’ll find PHEs, and other forms of heat transfer equipment, in manufacturing and industrial systems everywhere. They’re also actually in most homes, as a component of combination boilers. Put simply, they’re usually around when we need to cool something down or heat something up. And they’re usually robust and reliable, with a typical operational lifespan – depending on the application – of around 10 years if they’ve been reconditioned using OEM parts. This status as a familiar part of industrial operations, with a reputation for solid performance, perhaps goes some way to explaining why they can sometimes be overlooked for preventative maintenance attention.
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Stuart Farman, PHE Service Manager (left) and Rory MacKenzie, a business development lead, at PHE service provider OSSO
But, like any system, part failures can occur. And PHEs can experience a specific issue of fouling if water filtration earlier in the process isn’t up to scratch – not a technical problem with the unit itself, but nevertheless a fairly common event that can undermine performance.
It’s not just about the PHE failing entirely either – we’ve been contacted many times by operators who have realised the efficiency of an individual unit has dropped because of a technical issue and production is being impacted. We’ve also had those calls for help when the urgency is of a
36 MAY 2023 | PROCESS & CONTROL
different order altogether – when a PHE has failed completely and production has come to a halt. It happened most recently when a large whisky distiller got in touch after a production-critical PHE at one of their sites in Scotland developed a plate failure. Thanks to our geographical location and specialist PHE service centre, we were able to get right on to it and address a problem that was costing the customer thousands of pounds in lost production output every hour. We devised and executed a practical solution, using our workshop facilities in Aberdeen, and worked through a weekend to have the operation back up and running within just three days. The customer’s alternative options for achieving a solution would almost certainly have involved a longer timeframe.
It was pleasing to have the customer acknowledge the speed of both our
mobilisation and the delivery of our plate replacement plan. We’ve since gone on to develop a wider relationship as we’ve started to roll out a preventative maintenance programme across multiple sites in Scotland. It’s an experience that is perhaps emblematic of the transition that industry can profitably make in relation to PHEs, moving away from a reactive maintenance model to one in which technical issues can be anticipated, identified, and sidestepped. So what might a preventative package look like? It could feature several interlinked elements, beginning with an initial site survey and resulting recommendations based on those visual inspections. It might also usefully entail the compilation of lists of individual PHEs and their performance and maintenance records, hosted on an online database that tracks all maintenance requirements and informs maintenance plans during shutdowns.
It’s a model that might also involve holding spare plate and gasket packs for individual units, greatly expediting the replacement process when required and thus minimising downtime.
And it’s increasingly embracing technology-led solutions: thermographic survey work is of course not new to industry, but it’s assuming greater prominence in this specific area as a means of pinpointing PHE defects that may not yet be visually evident. These are all principles and practices we’ve taken on board at OSSO, creating a preventative maintenance proposition that can help operators to avoid costly unplanned shutdowns.
We’ve also set up a dedicated PHE service centre that manages and resources the entire inspection, tracking, planning and intervention process, with a team of experienced people who know the subject matter – not least because we have, for many years, maintained a fleet of our own PHEs used in mud cooling services for drilling operations internationally.
It’s a cradle-to-grave offering that we believe best serves operators at a time when cost pressures are driving a need to avoid those emergency call-outs and optimise production performance.
PHEs are often the unsung heroes of industrial processes because of their stalwart reputation, but hero status counts for little when zero production is the result of a failure.
OSSO
www.ossoltd.com
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