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Pounds per Square Inch for Pressure Release Valves

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  • We used bursting discs extensively in the pharmaceutical industry and they are expensive as all safety items are. They have a number of failings to consider:

    1. Expensive as mentioned above. Every variant is very expensive, you can't get away from that.
    2. They need to be protected from the environment, for example an external vent if installed without weather and vermin protection results in dirty water, bird shit, birds nests, wasp or bee hives or other insects building up on the disc. It's happened to the mega huge conglomerate I worked for. They then installed "Chinamen" hats with a fully covered "coat".
    3. I've seen them leak, without fully rupturing, resulting in product losses and or vacuum leaks.
    4. Instrumentation is required to positively identify a bursting event, but that will not pick up on the leak I mentioned above. The electrical indicator runs across the middle of the disc, great for a full rupture but if the disc is exposed to the environment in any way or suffers a minor event the signal may not be triggered.
    5. Additional instrumentation can be installed such as a pressure transmitter for vacuum applications or a temperature transmitter for our applications. There should be a significant delta T across the burst disc. If there's a noticeable temperature on the discharge side of the disc it may indicate a leak.
    6. Like all safety equipment, they require frequent inspection, ie they need to be part of your PM schedule. They are not a set and forget bit of kit. Unlike other similar technology that utilise a bursting and replaceable rod, these can't be cheaply tested. Long term the rod mechanism is by far the cheaper pathway. Cheaper to install, cheaper to maintain etc.
  • The more I read a 14 psi disc or better a 20 psi disc must suffice, (vacuum max 1 atm) it will not break.

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