Safety & Reliability of Industrial Gases, Equipment, & Facilities Seminar

Safety & Reliability of Industrial Gases, Equipment, & Facilities Seminar Recap

The 2018 CGA Safety and Reliability of Industrial Gases, Equipment, and Facilities Seminar was held October 16-18, in Hollywood, Florida. This is CGA’s longest first and longest running seminar, first held in 1962. This year’s seminar was chaired by Dr. John Somavarapu of American Air Liquide Holdings, Inc. and managed by CGA’s Atmospheric Gases and Equipment Committee. The event attracted over 80 attendees from 14 countries including Belgium, Canada, China, El Salvador, France, Germany, Guyana, Israel, Italy, Japan, Kuwait, Mexico, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

The two and a half day program included a wide range of presentations on technical topics, lessons learned, and best practices covering topics such as compressor building safety, thermal fatigue of equipment in cryogenic service, cleaning metals for oxygen service, industrial gas underground pipeline risk management, cryogenic tanker loading safety, risk based audits, and more. The seminar also featured a history session designed to communicate the basis for current industry positions. The historical presentations, given by the industry’s leading subject matter experts, spanned a range of topics including:

  • oxygen compressor safety and barrier design;
  • use of aluminum in oxygen service;
  • safe design and operation considerations for reboilers and condensers;
  • cold box integrity;
  • perlite management and safeguards;
  • safe use of brazed aluminum heat exchangers;
  • safe design and operation of flat-bottomed storage tanks;
  • prevention of cryogenic embrittlement;
  • oxygen valve and equipment safety;
  • evolution of liquid oxygen pumps for high pressure gaseous oxygen production;
  • oxygen enrichment hazards; and
  • cleaning equipment for oxygen service.

Industry members’ willingness to share lessons learned, best practices, research results, and new technologies supports the air separation industry’s long history of safe operation. Seminar attendees gave the seminar an overall rating of Excellent and noted the exceptional educational value as well as the high quality of presentations and knowledge of speakers.

The next Safety & Reliability of Industrial Gases, Equipment, & Facilities Seminar will be held on October 16 – 17, 2019 in Florida. CGA also plans to hold a Specialty Gases Technical & Safety Seminar in 2019. For more information on our seminars or other educational programming, please contact us.

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