<p>Pressure relief valves (PRV), along with other types of valves, play critical roles in the safe operation of many industrial processes.&nbsp; Valve failure rates determine not only their reliability but also their safety performance with respect to safety integrity level.&nbsp; Failure rates can be estimated from FFD or predicted by several techniques.&nbsp; While FFD is the best source for determining failure rates, it is often the case that there is insufficient quality FFD to estimate failure rates for all equipment of interest.&nbsp; Predictive methods (FMEA, FMEDA) provide an alternative solution to determining failure rates <i>provided that</i>, for some valves, the predictions can be validated against actual FFD.&nbsp; This paper presents the results of three comparative studies.&nbsp; In each study the failure rate of one specific valve at one specific facility is estimated from field failure data (FFD). Each estimate is compared to the failure rate predicted for that valve by the Calibrated FMEDA technique.&nbsp; The predicted failure rates consider the failure rate variations due to valve application, to fluid service, and to each specific facility’s Site Safety Index (SSI) which accounts for various aspects of safety culture. The results show that the predictions are quite good, i.e., all predictions lie within a 70% confidence interval constructed from each valve’s FFD and near the estimated mean failure rate for each valve.&nbsp;</p>

Comparison of Valve Failure Rates Estimated From Field Failure Data to Those Predicted by Calibrated FMEDA

Paper Proceedings: https://asmedigitalcollection.asme.org/PVP/PVP2021/volume/85314

ASME 2021 Pressure Vessels & Piping Conference (PVP2021)

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