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Paper Mill Equipment Freeze Damage

APTECH was hired by an insurance company to investigate a claim by a paper mill for equipment damage and loss of production. The investigation included records review (operation, production, and shift logs), personnel interviews, and equipment inspection. We found that the damage occurred during a five-day period of unusually cold weather. Water inside a support for a critical chemical piping system had frozen, and its resulting expansion had bent and broken the piping above. The absence of this chemical forced the paper machine to slow or shut down, which led to the freeze-up of other components. Our findings were summarized in a time-line format showing the sequence of events that caused the damage and loss of production.

Satish Almaula		Plant failure and root cause analysis; process and design engineering analysis; process technology development and testing; plant engineering, operations, maintenance and safety management; plant and process control system management.

Kimble Clark, Ph.D.		Failure analysis, heat transfer & thermodynamics, process plant equipment failures & explosions, fuel science, combustion, industrial fires and explosions.

Michael Cronin, P.E.		Stress analysis, design evaluation, engineering mechanics

Geoffrey Egan, Ph.D.		Engineering mechanics, welding engineering, stress and fatigue analysis, risk analysis, nondestructive examination, project management.

Richard Schreiber, P.E.		Machinery and mechanical device failure analysis, mechanical testing, combustion and heat transfer, industrial fires and explosions, gas appliances.

Eric Sullivan, P.E.		Metallurgy, welding, failure analysis, fire and explosion investigations, equipment, piping.