Testing
An improperly designed or misapplied flame arrestor can be a very dangerous piece of equipment. Every basic arrestor configuration is designed and manufactured to ISO-9001 quality standards and accepted for applicability by the U.S. Coast Guard, Underwriters Laboratories, the American Petroleum Institute and other worldwide regulatory agencies.
Small-scale tests are conducted in NAO Philadelphia lab. Full-scale tests (piping networks, liquid seal drums and large arrestors) are conducted at the company's 110-acre Environmental Research and Service Center.
The combustion of flammable gas/air mixtures in pipelines and vessels can quickly undergo transition from deflagration to detonation. Elbows, tees and valves cause that transition by creating turbulence and shock waves. Testing is essential to protect your refineries, chemical/petrochemical and pharmaceutical plants, especially fast burning gases, such as hydrogen and ethylene.
Thousands of untested flame and detonation arrestors provide only "an illusion of safety." Many have been, and continue to be, misapplied. Flame arrestors must satisfy these basic criteria:
- gas/air mixtures must flow through arrestors, without significant pressure drop
- detonation shock waves must be braked, without generating excessive heat
- flamefronts must not pass through to ignite potentially explosive vapors on the protected side of vessels or piping
Burner Testing
- four test heaters (one portable)
- emissions (CO, NOx, HC, etc.)
- flame shape/size
- burner turndown & stability
- wide range of test fuels
Flare Testing
- flare radiation with simulated winds
- wide range of flare sizes/types
- flare noise control
- flare emissions
- smoke
- smokeless
- purge rates
- internal burning
- oxygen levels
- wind simulations for flame tilt, pulldown
Flare Pilot/Ignitor Testing
- wide range of test fuels
- inert test environments- nitrogen cloud
- pilot stability & reliability
- all type of ignition systems
- testing of thermocouples, UV/IR monitoring
- wind & rain simulations for flame stability
Sprayer/Atomizer Testing
- wide range of flow rates/pressures
- measurement of particle size/distribution
- spray patterns
- evaporation tests in hot gas streams
Oxidizer Testing
- emissions
- fuel requirements
- operating temperatures
- noise
- turndown
- response time
Customer Testing
- existing burners for emissions and/or upgrading
- heat exchanger designs for performance and pressure loss
- existing flame or detonation arrestor and piping system
- existing seal drums for flame stopping and operational problems
- existing knock out drum performance for liquid separation
- fire and heat testing of materials and equipment
NAO, Inc., 1299 E. Sedgley Ave., Philadelphia, PA 19134. Tel: 800-328-7637. Fax: 215-743-3018.