Jacketed vessels or Reactors is utilized for mixing reactants. These are mainly utilized in bulk drugs, fertilizers, pesticides, dyes, petroleum, refineries, petrochemical plants, natural gas processing refrigeration, power plants, space heating, chemical, food & beverage allied and cosmetic industries.

A jacket is a cavity external to the vessel that permits the uniform exchange of heat between the fluid circulating in it and the walls of the vessel. There are several types of jackets, depending on the design.

A limpet coil jackets, which is part of a limpet coil reactor, is created by welding half a pipe around the outside of a pressure vessel. The temperature in the limpet coil helps control the temperature (heating or cooling) of the element inside the pressure reactor.

Limpet coil reactor vessels are used to control the temperature of the reactants with the help of heating or cooling media circulated through coils surrounding the main vessel.

Failure of limpet coil jacket during operation /site testing leads to shut down of the entire processing unit causes loss of productivity and work force. It requires highly skilled work force to fix the problem in the erected position or may require shifting the entire vessel to supplier location from site for replacement of entire limpet coil depends on the criticality and extent of damages /repairs.

This encouraged to prepare paper to list out the causes for failure of limpet coil reactors and precautions to be taken while fabrication & welding of limpet coils. This paper explains briefly about the purpose and application of Half pipe coil/ limpet coil jackets and fabrication and welding challenges, reasons for failure in testing & service and precautions required during fabrication and testing of limpet coils.

This article is shared by Gaddam Srinivas Reddy.