A pump is a device that moves fluids, or sometimes slurries, by mechanical action, typically converted from electrical energy into hydraulic energy.
A valve is a device or natural object that regulates, directs or controls the flow of a fluid by opening, closing, or partially obstructing various passageways. Valves are technically fittings, but are usually discussed as a separate category. In an open valve, fluid flows in a direction from higher pressure to lower pressure. The word is derived from the Latin valva, the moving part of a door, in turn from volvere, to turn, roll.
A safety valve is a valve that acts as a fail-safe. An example of safety valve is a pressure relief valve (PRV), which automatically releases a substance from a boiler, pressure vessel, or other system, when the pressure or temperature exceeds preset limits. Pilot-operated relief valves are a specialized type of pressure safety valve. A leak tight, lower cost, single emergency use option would be a rupture disk.
A check valve, non-return valve, reflux valve, retention valve, foot valve, or one-way valve is a valve that normally allows fluid to flow through it in only one direction.
A pressure vessel is a container designed to hold gases or liquids at a pressure substantially different from the ambient pressure.
A relief valve or pressure relief valve (PRV) is a type of safety valve used to control or limit the pressure in a system; excessive pressure might otherwise build up and create a process upset, instrument or equipment failure, explosion, or fire.
A gas cylinder is a pressure vessel for storage and containment of gases at above atmospheric pressure. High-pressure gas cylinders are also called bottles. Inside the cylinder the stored contents may be in a state of compressed gas, vapor over liquid, supercritical fluid, or dissolved in a substrate material, depending on the physical characteristics of the contents. A typical gas cylinder design is elongated, standing upright on a flattened bottom end, with the valve and fitting at the top for connecting to the receiving apparatus.
A containment building is a reinforced steel, concrete or lead structure enclosing a nuclear reactor. It is designed, in any emergency, to contain the escape of radioactive steam or gas to a maximum pressure in the range of 275 to 550 kPa. The containment is the fourth and final barrier to radioactive release, the first being the fuel ceramic itself, the second being the metal fuel cladding tubes, the third being the reactor vessel and coolant system.
A blowout preventer (BOP) is a specialized valve or similar mechanical device, used to seal, control and monitor oil and gas wells to prevent blowouts, the uncontrolled release of crude oil or natural gas from a well. They are usually installed in stacks of other valves.
Like other pressure relief valves (PRV), pilot-operated relief valves (PORV) are used for emergency relief during overpressure events. PORV are also called pilot-operated safety valve (POSV), pilot-operated pressure relief valve (POPRV), or pilot-operated safety relief valve (POSRV), depending on the manufacturer and the application. Technically POPRV is the most generic term, but PORV is often used generically even though it should refer to valves in liquid service.
An explosion vent or rupture panel is a safety device to protect equipment or buildings against excessive internal, explosion-incurred pressures, by means of pressure relief. An explosion vent will relieve pressure from the instant its opening pressure pstat has been exceeded.
Explosion protection is used to protect all sorts of buildings and civil engineering infrastructure against internal and external explosions or deflagrations. It was widely believed until recently that a building subject to an explosive attack had a chance to remain standing only if it possessed some extraordinary resistive capacity. This belief rested on the assumption that the specific impulse or the time integral of pressure, which is a dominant characteristic of the blast load, is fully beyond control.
Maximum Allowable Operating Pressure (MAOP) is a pressure limit set, usually by a government body, which applies to compressed gas pressure vessels, pipelines, and storage tanks. For pipelines, this value is derived from Barlow's Formula, which takes into account wall thickness, diameter, allowable stress, and a safety factor.
A potato cannon, also known as a potato gun or potato launcher, is a pipe-based cannon that uses air pressure (pneumatic), or combustion of a flammable gas, to fire projectiles, usually potatoes. A simple design consists of a pipe sealed on one end, with a reducer on the other end to lower the diameter of the pipe, which has the corresponding lower-diameter pipe attached to it, called the barrel. Generally, the operator loads the projectile into the barrel, then utilizes a fuel or air pressure to propel the projectile out of the cannon.
A high-integrity pressure protection system (HIPPS) is a type of safety instrumented system (SIS) designed to prevent over-pressurization of a plant, such as a chemical plant or oil refinery. The HIPPS will shut off the source of the high pressure before the design pressure of the system is exceeded, thus preventing loss of containment through rupture (explosion) of a line or vessel. Therefore, a HIPPS is considered as a barrier between a high-pressure and a low-pressure section of an installation.
Hydrogen safety covers the safe production, handling and use of hydrogen, particularly hydrogen gas fuel and liquid hydrogen. Hydrogen possesses the NFPA 704's highest rating of four on the flammability scale because it is flammable when mixed even in small amounts with ordinary air. Ignition can occur at a volumetric ratio of hydrogen to air as low as 4% due to the oxygen in the air and the simplicity and chemical properties of the reaction. However, hydrogen has no rating for innate hazard for reactivity or toxicity. The storage and use of hydrogen poses unique challenges due to its ease of leaking as a gaseous fuel, low-energy ignition, wide range of combustible fuel-air mixtures, buoyancy, and its ability to embrittle metals that must be accounted for to ensure safe operation.
The Ship and Offshore Structural Mechanics Laboratory (SSML) is a laboratory in the Department of Naval Architecture and Ocean Engineering of Pusan National University. The SSML develops methods useful for strength analysis and structural design of marine structures. The methods developed should be helpful for achievement of high performance of the structural system. The Laboratory has the facilities for numerical and experimental studies. This includes mechanical testing equipment and high-speed computers with non-linear finite element programmes.
Surge control is the use of different techniques and equipment in a hydraulic system to prevent any excessive gain in pressure that would cause the hydraulic process pressure to exceed the maximum working pressure of the mechanical equipment used in the system.
Instrumentation is used to monitor and control the process plant in the oil, gas and petrochemical industries. Instrumentation ensures that the plant operates within defined parameters to produce materials of consistent quality and within the required specifications. It also ensures that the plant is operated safely and acts to correct out of tolerance operation and to automatically shut down the plant to prevent hazardous conditions from occurring. Instrumentation comprises sensor elements, signal transmitters, controllers, indicators and alarms, actuated valves, logic circuits and operator interfaces.
A cryogenic storage dewar is a specialised type of vacuum flask used for storing cryogens, whose boiling points are much lower than room temperature. It is named after inventor James Dewar, who developed it for his own work. They are commonly used in low-temperature physics and chemistry.
