When pneumatic testing goes wrong

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If you pneumatically test any pressure containing equipment, make sure you know the dangers and have an adequate plan in place to mitigate those dangers.

 
Heh, a coworker was talking to me this week about building a bolt flanged pressurized pipe at his house for a project.

I had to send him a copy of this. :) Boom!

Looks like it failed above the weld. Weird spot for a failure. The pipe looks like cast metal, which can crack if not welded properly. Or maybe it just had a crack there to begin with.

 
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Latest update from the pipeline (no pun intended):

This failure happened last weekend. A GE compressor package was under nitrogen pressure test. You can see the pipe had a brittle fracture failure. I have no other details at this time. This is another illustration of the potential hazards of pneumatic testing. This is for the expansion of the West-East Gas Pipeline project for PetroChina. It is China's longest natural gas pipeline at 2500 miles (4000 km).

 
And that, ladies and gentlemen, is why you buy some blinds and hydro the sucker.

 
Looks like a giant weldneck flange failure. Doesn't look to me like the weld had anything to do with the failure. I wonder what the test pressure was.

 
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