Quality Assurance and Quality Control of Pressure Relief Studies

This work describes the Quality Assurance (QA) and Quality Control (QC) process for pressure relief studies.  Definitions are given for the terminology used for the QA/QC process of pressure relief system studies. A sample workflow of a typical pressure relief system analysis is given.  Different sections of the pressure relief analysis are briefly described and sample work instructions are given for each section.   A typical set of the documentation required for a pressure relief system study and a typical sequence of the documents therein are described. Work instructions are given for the QA/QC process in the different sections of the studies- setup, overpressure contingency analysis, concerns identification and the final documentation.  The final deliverables and a typical approval procedure for the final documentation is also given. The storing and maintaining the pressure relief studies is covered briefly. Lastly, some common pitfalls observed in QA/QC of hundreds of pressure relief systems from commercial refineries and petrochemical plants are described.