A) What factors might lead to failure of the reactor and/or rupture disk? B) Associate each factor from part A with a failure mechanism. C) What can you do to prevent the reactor and/or rupture disk from failing? What can you also do to prevent the release of toxic, flammable, and explosive gas?
Rupture disks are used in many chemical process plants to provide pressure protection without leaking any gas to the environment. Relief valves, by contrast, are only sold with pipe thread fittings and are,
therefore, unsuitable for gas handling applications unless welded around. The plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition of Si thin films takes place via the following reaction:
SiH4 (g) -> Si (s) + 2 H2 (g)
This reaction takes place at 10-6 atm (under vacuum) and 400 oC. The 316 stainless steel reactor vessel, however, must also be pressurized with a few atmospheres of inert gas monthly to do leak testing and
must be pressurized with inert gas to 1 atm after each deposition run before the Si thin film wafers can be removed from the reactor. In this case, a cold drawn and annealed 316 stainless steel rupture disk is
pre-indented such that it will fail at a pressure of 8 atm (1 atm = 101325 Pa). The maximum delivery pressure that the SiH4 pressure regulator can deliver is 10-3 atm, but the maximum delivery pressure on
the N2 regulator is 15 atm. The melting point of 316 stainless steel is 1520 oC SiH4 is highly toxic. Both SiH4 and hydrogen are flammable and explosive.
A) What factors might lead to failure of the reactor and/or rupture disk?
B) Associate each factor from part A with a failure
C) What can you do to prevent the reactor and/or rupture disk from failing? What can you also do to prevent the release of toxic, flammable, and explosive gas?
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