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In this article, we’re going to share with you 3 specific case studies where Quickflange, a weldless connection technology, saved clients 80% or more in time and costs by replacing flanges and performing tie-ins without requiring hot work.
With Quickflange, a hydraulic tool and a cold forging tool are used for installation. This produces no sparks and achieves the same strength connection that you’d get with welding.
If you want to learn more how it works before reading on, go here.
Now, here are 3 case studies where clients saved considerable money and time by avoiding hot work and using Quickflange for their projects.
1. Our First Quickflange
The very first Quickflanges we performed in Canada were in the Cold Lake Region in Alberta. We had a Sag-D client who had 3 oil treaters that had de-sanding headers and were inside the pressure enveloped of the vessels.
As you can see in the first picture below, the fabricator didn’t use standard flanges. They manufactured some plate and made plate flanges that were becoming terribly corroded, which led to leaks that caused efficiency issues inside the vessel with de-sanding and de-watering.
This was a critical path project, with the client having a total of 30 flanges inside the confined space. The original project of replacing all 30 flanges was 3 weeks and involved steaming, cleaning and degassing the vessels.
Breathing air would have been needed for the workers, and they would have needed manwatches. You can imagine the entire requirement for confined space welding and cutting.
They had 180 scheduled hours plus 500 man hours planned for this job.
With Quickflange cold work, we were able to go into the vessels, cold cut the flanges off, remove them, and install each flange at about 25 minutes per flange.
The entire project was reduced to 2 1/2 shifts of cold work, saving weeks off their schedule, and hundreds of thousands in cost savings.
2. Active Ward In A Hospital
The next case involves a fire water system at a hospital in Calgary, Alberta. There was a utility room that was on an active hospital ward, 12 feet away from the nursing station, with patients in the ward.
They needed to install an isolation valve because the original design of the fire water system was done with no isolation across multiple floors to be able to make changes or rerouting.
We went into this job on a night shift with two technicians.
We performed a freeze plug on the top and bottom of the tie point location. Once established, we were able to cold cut the initial spool, then we fitted the first two Quickflanges on either end of the open ended pipe.
We then took the pipe we had cut out and we fabricated a new pipe piece spool with two more Quickflanges.
We installed the valve, installed the spool, bolted up the connections, performed a hydro test on all four Quickflange connections and finished that tie point in a 12 hour shift with 2 people.
No hot work required.
3. Refinery In Ontario
At a refinery in Sarnia, Ontario, there was an underground 6 inch propane line that the client needed to do a tie-in on.
They had a lot of concerns around LEL’s as well as a major welding concern due to the presence of benzene.
We were able to cut and prep the line to fit the flange.
We hydrotested the finished product, and the entire activity including the confined space in the trench took a total of 6 hours.
With Quickflange, we solved a real problem around them not being able to perform hot work and did it in less than a full shift.
Driving Cost-Efficiency
Whether it was saving a ton of overhead, performing a necessary installation that didn’t have the capabilities for hot work, or a working in a hazardous work area that could not be cleared of gas, this weldless connection technology was a great option for replacing flanges and performing tie-ins without any sparks.
On top of the huge value Quickflange provides in terms of time and cost-efficiency, the ability to perform these repairs without hot work so that facilities can take action quickly is what makes this technology such a great tool for your toolkit.
If you want to learn more about Quickflange, visit this short post that shares how the technology works and why it is so cost-efficient for your facility.
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