Cliff Knight, P.E.: About the Author
President and Chief Engineer, KnightHawk Engineering, Inc.
Cliff is President and Chief Engineer of KnightHawk Engineering, Incorporated. He is a Professional Engineer with 34 years of experience. Cliff serves as the lead technical professional for major multidiscipline investigations into industrial static and rotating equipment failures. Cliff has received five US patents for static and rotating equipment. Before coming to KnightHawk Engineering, Cliff spent ten years at Dow Chemical, U.S.A. Cliff has a BSME from Louisiana State University 1980. Cliff is a registered Professional Engineer in over 30 states and certified by The United State Council for International Engineering Practice for registration in the International Registry of Professional Engineers. Cliff is also certified a Specialized Professional Engineer for Nuclear work under ASME Section III.
Is this you? Please help us keep this page up-to-date by occasionally submitting your updated information.
Published Articles
It is another day at the plant and as usual, your boss calls and says there is a meeting in the conference room that he wants you to attend regarding a compressor failure. That is all you know, but from experience you know it must be something major since all the “brass” will be in the conference room.
Steam turbines exist in most every major industrial facility. Many of these turbines have been running for years and have been very stable. Typically, after a period of time, the equipment is shut down for maintenance during a planned outage. It is more common than not that the turbine will experience problems after the shutdown and perhaps even failure or high vibration will occur.
What I am primarily concerned with, in this article, is erosion corrosion control. Now, what is erosion corrosion? Well, no matter how you might look at it, erosion corrosion involves the degradation of the material by some mechanical action, in conjunction with a chemical interaction between the material and the media it is in contact with.
<p>The morning meeting at the plant was a tough one for you. As an area engineer you are not satisfied with the information you are receiving from your team's investigation into a major compressor wreck that has happened once again. The conclusion from the team has always been corrosion fatigue, and suggestions have been made to change the material to a more exotic type...</p>
<p>Once again there is a crack found in the inlet tubesheet in your high-pressure high temperature heat exchanger. As head of the maintenance engineering effort, you know that plant management will ask you if it can run safely and reliability until the next scheduled shutdown.</p>
