Numerical modelling of high vacuum columns for life assessment and failure prevention

A research report submitted to the Faculty of Engineering and the Built Environment, University of the Witwatersrand, in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Masters in Engineering. Date: 20 May 2018High vacuum towers in the petrochemical industry are common especially in crude refineries. They operate in deep vacuum, usually around 98kPa and very high temperatures in the region of 400℃. They perform a critical role in the crude processing plants in which vaporised crude oil from heaters is fed into these vessels to produce products such as vacuum residue, heavy vacuum gas oil, light vacuum gas oil and so forth under this deep vacuum environment. This specific vacuum tower under review suffered severe localised internal corrosion on the upper section just above the conical section. The conical section of the column together with the bottom section are constructed from carbon steel which is clad with stainless steel to mitigate against naphthenic acid corrosion attack. Unfortunately, the top section does not have this cladding even though temperature profile in the region indicated that naphthenic acid corrosion would still be active. Literature review undertaken revealed the various forms of failures under corrosion, the most prominent being stress corrosion and corrosion fatigue. It was established that there were not cracks in the structure during inspections and that the most likely failure mechanism under corrosion would be buckling of the structure due to the negative internal pressure and the weight of the structure above the local thin area. A numerical model was developed to simulate behaviour of the structure under all the applicable loads with the different scenarios being imposed onto the model, for example, varying the thickness of the thinned region to estimate failure. The predicted remaining life was only 18 months from the last inspection where buckling failure is expected to occur at a thickness less than 6.7mm. Based on the results, a complete overhaul of the maintenance strategy is recommended which include immediately using on stream measuring techniques to predict wall thickness, review corrosion control documents to ensure proper material selection to prevent naphthenic acid corrosion, develop inspection strategies for high vacuum towers based on actual data and unique to each piece of equipment and finally ensure crude diet selection is supported by a technical review on the impact to process equipment.MT 201

South African universities and human development : Towards a theorisation and operationalisation of professional capabilities for poverty reduction

This paper reports on a research project investigating the role of universities in South Africa in contributing to poverty reduction through the quality of their professional education programmes. The focus here is on theorising and the early operationalisation of multi-layered, multi-dimensional transformation based on ideas from Amartya Sen's capability approach. Key features of a professionalism oriented to public service, which in South Africa must mean the needs and lives of the poor, are outlined. These features include: the demand from justice; the expansion of the comprehensive capabilities both of the poor and professional capability formation to be able to act in ‘pro-poor’ ways; and, praxis pedagogies which shape this connected process. This theorisation is then tentatively operationalised in a process of selecting transformation dimensions

Poverty and 'Second Economy' in South Africa: An Attempt to Clarify Applicable Concepts and Quantify Extent of Relevant Challenges

In brief, the paper firstly summarises old and new theoretical and technical issues on measuring poverty, secondly analyses poverty from different perspectives and highlights various research findings on poverty trends in South Africa and thirdly clarifies the notion of "second economy" and attempts to "measure" it

Citizenship and the politics of poverty definition during the segregation, apartheid and democratic eras in South Africa: 1910-2010

In social policy, there is a direct relation between citizenship with social rights and the understanding of poverty. The notion of citizenship with rights informs the conceptualization of poverty. The relation between citizenship and the conceptualisation and definition of poverty is explored in South African society covering segregation, apartheid and post-apartheid democratic periods. Marshall’s theory of citizenship with its three elements of social political, civil and social rights is the theoretic-analytic framework employed in the thesis. In the segregation era there was a link between the denial of full citizenship to blacks and how poverty was understood. This is evident in the adoption of policies and laws such as the civilized labour policy, discriminatory Wage Acts, Wage Boards to determine the level of wages of black workers and interventions such as the 1932 Carnegie Commission aimed at addressing the poor white problem. In the apartheid era, a system founded on racial discrimination, it was Edward Batson’s PDL that he pioneered to demonstrate that there were many South Africans living below this ‘barest minimum’ that stood for ‘existence at the lowest possible level’ that was used to define poverty among blacks and adopted in fixing the wages of black workers. The wages of black workers remained lower than the PDL. The Household Subsistence Level (HSL) and the Minimum Living Level (MLL) were derivatives of the PDL (the HSL was exactly the PDL, the MLL was lower in value) and were conceptually similar were used as poverty definitions and poverty lines to fix the wages of black workers, thus showing the link between the denial of citizenship and the politics of poverty definition. In the post-apartheid era with a Constitution that enshrines a Bill of Rights with explicit and specific social and economic rights, and human dignity, social justice and the commitment to improve the quality of life of all citizens as foundational values aimed at addressing extensive multi-dimensional poverty, apartheid era concepts and definitions of poverty (mainly the HSL and MLL) continue. This has been reinforced by the analyses of poverty undertaken by the World Bank in the post-apartheid era. There is, therefore, a conceptual discord and contradiction between the understanding of poverty expressed in social and economic rights in the Constitution and the use of absolute, minimalist, physical efficiency definitions of poverty. In the democratic era there are emerging studies and analyses of poverty that go beyond absolute measures and consider poverty as fundamentally multi-dimensional. However even these studies do not seek to operationalise the Constitutional provisions.</p

Citizenship and the politics of poverty definition during the segregation, apartheid and democratic eras in South Africa: 1910-2010

In social policy, there is a direct relation between citizenship with social rights and the understanding of poverty. The notion of citizenship with rights informs the conceptualization of poverty. The relation between citizenship and the conceptualisation and definition of poverty is explored in South African society covering segregation, apartheid and post-apartheid democratic periods. Marshall’s theory of citizenship with its three elements of social political, civil and social rights is the theoretic-analytic framework employed in the thesis. In the segregation era there was a link between the denial of full citizenship to blacks and how poverty was understood. This is evident in the adoption of policies and laws such as the civilized labour policy, discriminatory Wage Acts, Wage Boards to determine the level of wages of black workers and interventions such as the 1932 Carnegie Commission aimed at addressing the poor white problem. In the apartheid era, a system founded on racial discrimination, it was Edward Batson’s PDL that he pioneered to demonstrate that there were many South Africans living below this ‘barest minimum’ that stood for ‘existence at the lowest possible level’ that was used to define poverty among blacks and adopted in fixing the wages of black workers. The wages of black workers remained lower than the PDL. The Household Subsistence Level (HSL) and the Minimum Living Level (MLL) were derivatives of the PDL (the HSL was exactly the PDL, the MLL was lower in value) and were conceptually similar were used as poverty definitions and poverty lines to fix the wages of black workers, thus showing the link between the denial of citizenship and the politics of poverty definition. In the post-apartheid era with a Constitution that enshrines a Bill of Rights with explicit and specific social and economic rights, and human dignity, social justice and the commitment to improve the quality of life of all citizens as foundational values aimed at addressing extensive multi-dimensional poverty, apartheid era concepts and definitions of poverty (mainly the HSL and MLL) continue. This has been reinforced by the analyses of poverty undertaken by the World Bank in the post-apartheid era. There is, therefore, a conceptual discord and contradiction between the understanding of poverty expressed in social and economic rights in the Constitution and the use of absolute, minimalist, physical efficiency definitions of poverty. In the democratic era there are emerging studies and analyses of poverty that go beyond absolute measures and consider poverty as fundamentally multi-dimensional. However even these studies do not seek to operationalise the Constitutional provisions

Citizenship and the politics of poverty definition during the segregation, apartheid and democratic eras in South Africa: 1910-2010

In social policy, there is a direct relation between citizenship with social rights and the understanding of poverty. The notion of citizenship with rights informs the conceptualization of poverty. The relation between citizenship and the conceptualisation and definition of poverty is explored in South African society covering segregation, apartheid and post-apartheid democratic periods. Marshallâs theory of citizenship with its three elements of social political, civil and social rights is the theoretic-analytic framework employed in the thesis. In the segregation era there was a link between the denial of full citizenship to blacks and how poverty was understood. This is evident in the adoption of policies and laws such as the civilized labour policy, discriminatory Wage Acts, Wage Boards to determine the level of wages of black workers and interventions such as the 1932 Carnegie Commission aimed at addressing the poor white problem. In the apartheid era, a system founded on racial discrimination, it was Edward Batsonâs PDL that he pioneered to demonstrate that there were many South Africans living below this âbarest minimumâ that stood for âexistence at the lowest possible levelâ that was used to define poverty among blacks and adopted in fixing the wages of black workers. The wages of black workers remained lower than the PDL. The Household Subsistence Level (HSL) and the Minimum Living Level (MLL) were derivatives of the PDL (the HSL was exactly the PDL, the MLL was lower in value) and were conceptually similar were used as poverty definitions and poverty lines to fix the wages of black workers, thus showing the link between the denial of citizenship and the politics of poverty definition. In the post-apartheid era with a Constitution that enshrines a Bill of Rights with explicit and specific social and economic rights, and human dignity, social justice and the commitment to improve the quality of life of all citizens as foundational values aimed at addressing extensive multi-dimensional poverty, apartheid era concepts and definitions of poverty (mainly the HSL and MLL) continue. This has been reinforced by the analyses of poverty undertaken by the World Bank in the post-apartheid era. There is, therefore, a conceptual discord and contradiction between the understanding of poverty expressed in social and economic rights in the Constitution and the use of absolute, minimalist, physical efficiency definitions of poverty. In the democratic era there are emerging studies and analyses of poverty that go beyond absolute measures and consider poverty as fundamentally multi-dimensional. However even these studies do not seek to operationalise the Constitutional provisions.</p

Towards a democratic definition of poverty: socially perceived necessities in South Africa

This paper presents findings from a module in the HSRC's 2005 South African Social Attitudes Survey that was designed by the Centre for the Analysis of South African Social Policy at the University of Oxford. Respondents were asked to select from a list which items, services and activities they regard as essential for all people to have, have access to, or be able to do, in order to enjoy an acceptable standard of living in present-day South Africa. The findings show a striking level of agreement between different groups regarding the necessities, resulting in a 'democratically derived' definition of poverty. The analysis presented in this monograph is part of an ongoing collaboration between URED and the Centre for the Analysis of South African Social Policy at the University of Oxford in relation to poverty and social policy in contemporary South Africa. The Human Sciences Research Council's Urban, Rural and Economic Development Research Programme (URED) uses a multi-disciplinary approach to promote integrated urban and rural development in southern Africa and across the continent. Poverty reduction is the unifying, overarching theme and purpose of URED's work, and the programme's activities coalesce around the themes of: poverty and rural development; infrastructure and service delivery; urban change and migration; and human development, tourism, and climate change.

Developing a democratic definition of poverty in South Africa

The democratic approach to defining poverty is set in its theoretical context. The relevance of the approach for South Africa is discussed, and a definition is presented which emerges from quantitative research undertaken in South Africa in 2005. Various issues are considered in relation to the South African case, in particular the extent and nature of consensus across different groups; evidence of whether bounded realities and adaptive preferences could be deflating the definition; and a consideration of how the definition may change over time, particularly in relation to transitional necessities and the views of young people