TPi November 2014

Valves , Fi t t ings & Flanges

Air-operated valves in gas filling plant For over ten years Tungum Ltd has been the agent in the UK for CPV Manufacturing Inc, USA, promoting and selling its range of leading edge valves and fittings. More recently Tungum has been awarded the opportunity to represent CPV in France, Holland, Belgium and Luxembourg.

outside the plant on the ground storage tanks, which are subjected to extreme Idaho winter weather conditions, have all performed flawlessly since installation,” said Mr Goicoechea. “We have many facilities using FloMaster valves that have hardly had any maintenance, which have been operating for seven or eight years without problems.” Weldcoa’s Sur-Fill automated software ensures gas mixtures are controlled, monitored and safely filled to preset cylinder weights, which are calibrated precisely to within grams of their final assigned weight when compared to a Norco reference cylinder. The program also controls and monitors pure gases precisely, so they are filled to their pre-programed cylinder pressures in accordance to the type of gas being filled.

Inside the Boise fill plant are two double- sided palletised fill islands, designed, built and installed by Weldcoa. The islands have 13 fill heads capable of handling as many as ten cylinder pallets at one time, depending on product needs. Half of the fill islands are fully automated, and the other half are manually operated. Medical grade gases such as oxygen, air and nitrogen at pressures up to 4,500 psi are filled manually, while large volume welding gas mixtures and pure industrial gases such as nitrogen, helium, industrial oxygen and argon are more efficiently filled automatically. Gases from the plant’s main cryogenic tanks are pumped into cylinders directly, and also transferred and pressurised continuously during the day into separate exterior ground storage tanks. This system was primarily designed to eliminate waiting for product availability throughout different fill areas in the plant. The plant also does a lot of helium filling for use by labs and welding operations. To keep up with the volume, helium from tube trailers is transferred and pressur- ised to 3,000 psi during the night when the plant is closed, and controlled by an automated compressor control panel.

A recent installation was carried out at Norco Inc, a gas filling plant located in Boise, Idaho, USA. The 53,000ft 2 automated facility, built in 2008, houses an automated gas fill system by Weldcoa Inc, and a 1,250ft 2 research lab for Norco’s NorLab speciality gases line. According to Boise plant manager Ken Goicoechea, “Norco Inc is the largest independently owned welding, safety, medical and industrial gas supplier in the United States, with over 50 branch offices in seven western states.” The plant, which fills cylinders with many different types of high pressure gases, has been designed using hundreds of CPV Manufacturing FloMaster TM air- operated valves and CPV O-Seal valves and fittings. CPV valves and fittings were specified due to their leak-proof performance and operating reliability. Weldcoa’s chief engineer, Carl Schmidt, commented, “The valves were specified in the needle valve configuration because with high pressure gases, 3,000 psi and above, valves need to be opened slowly in a controlled manner.”

Tungum Ltd – UK sales@tungum.com www.tungum.com

N o w a p p r o v e d a n d c e r t i f i e d f o r 1 1 4 0 b a r , 1 6 ´ 5 0 0 P S I . 16´500 PSI 1140 BAR CERTIFIED 1 0 0 % n o w e l d e d p a r t s .

“FloMaster valves inside the plant, on the fill island, plus the FloMaster valves

no welding <1min installation metal-to-metal sealed certified to 1140bar

A rack of FloMaster air-operated valves from CPV Manufacturing precisely controls gas mixtures

haelok.com info@

53 11.09.14 17:54

November 2014 Tube Products International HLK Inserat Final.indd 1

www.read-tpi.com