Boil's Laws—That's Incredible [Funny Bone]

Richard Byrnes

Rich Byrnes is a native New Yorker who attended Manhattan College where he obtained a Bachelors Degree in Chemical Engineering in 1983. After graduation, he was Commissioned as an Officer in the United States Navy Nuclear Submarine Program, and attended the Naval Nuclear Power School achieving a Masters level Education in Nuclear Engineering. Rich served overseas operating out of Holy Loch Scotland on active duty, and was assigned to Nuclear Ballistic Missile Submarines. After leaving the Navy, he joined the DuPont Company in Wilmington, DE where he filled Management roles in R&D, Production, Maintenance & Construction, Project, and Technology Development at their sites in Deepwater NJ, Wilmington DE, and LaPorte TX. Rich then accepted a role as Plant Manager at King Industries, a privately held Specialty Chemical, Coatings and Lubricant Additives Company in Norwalk CT.

He is now their Director of Engineering responsible for their Process Improvement and Business Development Capital Projects, and the Corporate Process Safety Management Program. Although not formally trained in art, Rich's interest in this field started at a very young age, learning from the works of the masters in comic books, newspapers, and magazines. His work has been published in his high school & college year books, Antique Collectors Magazine, and most recently for the VFW and the Sikorsky/Connecticut Fallen Heroes Committee. Rich resides in Shelton Connecticut and is married to Christina, formally of Yonkers NY, and has two daughters, Nicole who is college bound and Jessica who is now attending High School. Full page images from my comic Boil's Law can be seen at http://chenected.aiche.org/boil’s-law-comics/ 

Welcome to the 12th comic in the Boil's Laws comic strip series, brought to ChEnected by artist and chemical engineer Rich Byrnes. You can see a or the first in the series here. Read about the inspiration behind Boil's Laws here. Read all the comics here. Click to Enlarge MUST SEE: This comic was inspired by real-life events described by Peter Lodal in this video at 6:06. In this post you will also see photos of balloons descending on a chemical plant.

Has your process ever experienced a "non-credible" event that made you rethink your PHA?

Comments

Submitted by Robert S (not verified) on Mon, 07/09/2012 - 11:47

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Though I am sure your example happens more often than is expected, my typical experience is with assumptions during troubleshooting. If a unit is not performing properly and I ask if an instrument has been checked the response could be - "why would we check that? There is a reading on the screen" As if this was some guarantee that it is accurate. Was it calibrated? When? Was it prepared properly for operations? And so on. Simply incredible that a number on the computer screen could be incorrect.

Submitted by Rich Byrnes (not verified) on Thu, 07/12/2012 - 20:13

In reply to by Robert S (not verified)

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Robert, I agree we all tend to become "mesmerized" by technology, we assume if a computer (DCS/PLC) with digital inputs/outputs, is communicating with sophisticated instruments over a bus network, then the numbers must simply just be right. This reminds me of when the internet was first breaking on the scene for us in the general public (did I just date myself?), folks would often insist a story or item was indeed factual since they found the information on the Internet, believing that the technology by which the information was delivered somehow made it more authentic. There is a nice thread on the AIChE Linkedin Group discussing Process Safety and where should Automation Stop. This thread speaks towards your point. Thanks for the post, and your interest in Boil's Laws. Rich