Air Venturi Pressure Disc Failure

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NL-Law

NL-Law

Member
Nov 11, 2017
159
10
Newfoundland, Canada
Hey All

So, with 13 hours on my Air Venturi compressor, I had an interesting experience today.

I was filling my CF tank and the pressure was at approximately 230BAR. (Showing on both the Compressor and Bottle gauge.) Suddenly, the safety pressure burst disc ruptured releasing a rush of air.

After shutting everything down and releasing the pressure, I pulled the small copper burst disc and found it had a perfect round pin-hole blown in it. Not a big deal as I got 3 extra little copper burst discs with the compressor, but I don’t understand why it would fail at such a relatively low pressure. 

Anyway, let me know what you think or if you’ve heard of similar problems. 

Thanks all
 
I think that the most likely answer is probably fatigue but these things aren't an exact science. I suppose it is possible for a drip of moisture to lodge in the disc housing cavity, creating a hydraulic spike in pressure. It may be just a faulty or wrong spec disc. I wouldn't worry about whatever caused it to blow and just replace it. That is why they supply spares. This kind of thing and untrustworthy Orings are why I use a simple inline check valve as close to the bottle as possible. If I spring a leak while I'm absent, I don't lose a whole tank of air. 
 
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Burst discs. Very interesting subject, but the short answer is they may have put a disc in that was too close to the working pressure rather than the "protection" pressure. Most burst discs have a typical tolerance of plus 6% and minus 3%. Usually they come in 500psi increments. You can buy your own, or put in the supplied discs and see if you get the same results. If you do, I would consider increasing the burst pressure by 500psi. You might have also got a weak disc. They are not an exact science, so the next one might work just fine.

Background story, these discs do fail sometimes below the rated pressure. We use them in dive tanks and sometimes it gets real exciting when one goes off. Did you happen to be in close proximity? Sometimes when these discs give way, people have been known to have to change their underwear. lol.
(edit: I was writing this the same time as eaglebeak and we both used "exact science", funny.)
 
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The burst disk is a thin piece of a copper alloy that is supposed to fail at a predictable failure point. The problem is that it is not 100% accurate and there will be some variance in when it blows. Another problem with the disks is that the deterioration that causes it to blow is cumulative so the little bit of air pressure on that one spot on the disk will eventually cause it to blow . It similar to tapping lightly on a window pane eventually it will break even though the individual force of the tapping is not enough to break it. The reason that burst disks are used is cost it’s a few cents for a copper disk verses $75 for a high pressure relief valve. 
 
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The 5000 burst disk are hard to find, Pyramyd Air is out of them, did find one left on amazon and ordered it.

Thanks for the reply.
Click to expand...

You are lucky Pyramyd is out of them. What a rip. $5.00 for one. Here's a link for 10 for $1.40 including shipping from Aliexpress.

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/10Pcs-Set-Brass-Explosion-proof-Slice-Rupture-Disc-for-YONGHENG-Air-Compressor-Pump-Compressor-Disk-For/32909985425.html?spm=2114.search0604.3.2.3d86707awQBer1&ws_ab_test=searchweb0_0,searchweb201602_6_10065_10130_10068_10890_10547_319_10546_317_10548_10545_10696_453_10084_454_10083_10618_10307_537_536_10059_10884_10887_321_322_10103,searchweb201603_6,ppcSwitch_0&algo_expid=3b54ba49-2446-4588-9d9a-5a97ee36b080-0&algo_pvid=3b54ba49-2446-4588-9d9a-5a97ee36b080

Click to expand...

Thanks I will check that out
 
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