Risk-Based Maintenance (RBM) Approach for Identifying the Optimum Time of Whole Shutdown (SD) for Gas Liquid Recovery Unit; Processing Columns as a Case Study

Abstract

Pieces of equipment for any a processing unit, which run continuously under severe conditions usually exposed to undesirable failures such as a corrosion, leakage and other reasons due to over pressure and fluctuated temperatures. These failures could be resulted in huge risk of the unit. Therefore, these pieces of equipment should be subjected to risk-based maintenance approach in order to conduct planned shutdown event without taking the recommended periods of the original equipment manufacturers into account, which may not be represented the optimum solution of planned shutdown scheduling in the long-term due to operating conditions that differ from a unit to another. The purpose of this work is to determine optimum interval of planned shutdown for unit based on processing columns to avoid an unplanned estimation of shutdown, mitigate risk, extend critical equipment life, maximise uptime, decrease maintenance cost, reduce production losses and improve reliability of system. The results of risk-based maintenance application in gas liquid recovery unit demonstrated that interval of planned shutdown could be increased based on the risk assessment related to processing columns.