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PORTABLE IMAGING DEVICES FOR INDUSTRIAL LEAK DETECTION AT PETROLEUM REFINERIES AND CHEMICAL PLANTS
Citation:
WILLIAMS, D. J., M. KNUDSON, P. SHAPIRO, AND J. Myers. PORTABLE IMAGING DEVICES FOR INDUSTRIAL LEAK DETECTION AT PETROLEUM REFINERIES AND CHEMICAL PLANTS. Presented at 2008 Science Forum, Washington, DC, May 20 - 22, 2008.
Impact/Purpose:
Presentation
Description:
Undiscovered gas leaks, or fugitive emissions, in chemical plants and refinery operations can impact regional air quality as well as being a public health problem. Surveying a facility for potential gas leaks can be a daunting task. Industrial Leak Detection and Repair (LDAR) programs are effective at finding leaks in many situations, but can be expensive to administer, consume manpower resources, and often miss leaks in places that are difficult to access. An efficient, accurate and cost effective method for detecting and quantifying gas leaks would both save industries money by identifying production losses and improve regional air quality. Recently developed specialized gas imaging video systems have proven effective in rapidly locating gas leaks. For these devices to be useful to regulatory agencies and industry, a comprehensive assessment and verification of their performance is required. The EPA’s Environmental Technology Verification program (ETV) has undertaken a project to test several commercial available gas imaging devices in a controlled laboratory setting as well as in the field at several industry locations. The goal of this project is to determine the performance of these devices and provide objective results to the potential user community for informed purchasing. The economic case for using these devices is compelling. A large refinery may spend over $1M a year on their LDAR program, which traditionally use a team of inspectors to check individual components. The imagers can be used to monitor multiple components at a time, resulting in cost savings estimated to be on the order of 2 - 4 times that of traditional LDAR methods. The gas imagers are especially useful for detecting the large leaks that cost a refinery in terms of lost product. Improved air quality resulting from efficiently detecting and repairing leaks and finding leaks in unmonitored places is anticipated with the widespread use of these devices.