Tubes Failure of Ammonium Nitrate Falling Film Evaporator

Fatima Group was established in 1936 with trading of commodities and gradually entered into the manufacturing of various products. The Group has a success story spread over seven decades, expanding its horizon from trading to manufacturing. Today, the Group is engaged in trading of commodities, manufacturing of fertilizers, textiles, sugar, mining and energy. Over 10,000 people are associated with Fatima Group, in various capacities. Fatima Group owns and operates two mixed fertilizer manufacturing sites with annual capacity of 2.1 million tons producing Urea, Calcium Ammonium Nitrate and Nitro-phosphate. The paper covers learning from the catastrophic failure of a Falling Film Evaporator tubes on Ammonium Nitrate service. Paper describes detailed investigation findings and root cause to avoid similar situation in other similar plants. Handling of damaged evaporator in such a way that plant could operate till arrival of new one (12 months) was another challenging task, it is also described in detail. It is expected that paper will be quite interesting for manufacturers where boiling acid attack on stainless steels is encountered.