Posts Tagged ‘Expansion’

The Best in Expansion Joint Products – Help Your Business

The Best in Expansion Joint Products – Help Your Business

Elaborate piping systems need to be designed with the necessary flexibility to handle movement caused by such factors as vibration, thermal changes, or the movement of equipment. This is true of virtually all industrial piping systems, whether they conduct water, gas, steam, oil or any chemical products.
Pressure and temperature may vary greatly in any given system. In order to provide this flexibility, expansion joint products are needed to protect the integrity of the system. Sometimes a piping system needs metal expansion joints and sometimes fabric expansion joints are called for.
In either case careful engineering and manufacturing ss necessary in order to get a high quality solution to the expansion joint needs of your business. While a wide variety of metal expansion joints, fabric expansion joints, and metal bellows joints are manufactured to meet most requirements, it is not uncommon to have the manufacturer specially design solutions to fit unique business needs. If your organization is in the market for any of these products you’ll want to use a top-rated company that uses the latest in technology to design expansion joints or metal bellows to your exact specifications. You also want to be assured that any product you buy meets the Expansion Joint Manufacturers Association, (EJMA) minimum requirements.
The variety of products offered on the market today is designed to meet the needs of any piping system your business may have. Unrestrained assemblies include Single Expansion Joint Assemblies, Universal Expansion Joint Assemblies, and Externally Pressurized Expansion Joints. The product line of restrained assemblies includes Tied Single Bellows Assemblies, Tied Universal Assemblies, Hinged Bellows Assemblies, and Gimbel Bellows Assemblies. Each of these products meets a specific need.
There is also a wide group of specialty expansion joint products available in today’s market including those for the aerospace industry, heat exchangers, Fluid Catalytic Cracking Units, and many more. These specialty products come in both metal and fabric designs and the pressure tolerance for these products ranges from full vacuum to 2000 psig.
Any company making these products should maintain a strong commitment to excellence and stand 100% by its products. The entire line of products is usually guaranteed to be free of any defects in both workmanship and material. In addition, the companies often guarantee that products will be repaired or replaced if any defects occur within one year of installation or eighteen months of delivery. If you’re in need of expansion joint products you can start the process by getting a quote from a good company for your products regardless of the applications you need them for. Most of these businesses are members of the EJMA and all of their products meet at least the minimum EJMA requirements.
The expansion joint industry is highly specialized and if you’re in need of any products for your piping system you want to get the best available on the market. Don’t be pressured into settling for anything less.

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How Expansion Joint Systems Work

How Expansion Joint Systems Work

Expansion joint systems are an innovative alternative for pipes and pipelines. These joints can be used in the oil, paper, and petrochemical industries and in many others fields.
The diversity of expansion joints available for application is great. They are usually manufactured at standard dimensions and can reach from 1 to 200 inches in diameter; can withstand temperatures from minus 300 degrees F up to 4000 degrees F and can resist at full vacuum or 2000 psig.
The introduction of fabric expansion joints on the market completely revolutionized the way that engineers solve thermal expansion, corrosive and abrasive problems. These fabric joints can be used in different applications for turbines. With different fabric membranes and designs, extensions joints can easily be used for turbine exhaust applications (GTX). GTX are rather problematic applications that pose distinctive challenges concerning performance and resistance through time but which can now be more easily solved with the help of fabric joints.
Metal bellows are generally used in pipeline systems that connect pumps and vessels. The design of the folds in the metal bellow allows for greater axial, lateral, and angular movement. To increase the angular or lateral flexibility, ties, pivots and other trimmings can be added to a metal bellow. The life span of these devices is determined by the shape, material, degree to which the junction must be able to move, and of course, forces that are greater than the designed limits.
With the help of these bellows, flanged-end and fused-end expansion joints can be quite easily and quickly fabricated. Both universal and double expansion joints use two bellows.
Metal expansion joints are crucial components for pipeline technology. They are used to counterbalance length changes, which usually occur in pipelines from temperature changes. Besides this, they are capable of absorbing vibrations developed by pumps, engines, compressors or turbines. Depending on the situation, axial and lateral movement as well as angular movement can be compensated. Metal expansion joints offer a cost effective choice and enhance the productive life cycle of a pipeline system. Designed to last as long as the system; metal bellows reduce sealing problems and the large space needed with alternative expansion equipment.
Some of the most vital and complex categories of expansion joints manufactured are those used in FCCU (fluid catalytic cracking unit). The reason for the complexity is these expansion joints have to withstand extremely high temperatures (1400 degrees F) and pressures, extreme and aggressive environments and great movement conditions.
To ensure a good function of these systems, absolute attention and skill is mandatory in designing the bellows and hardware. All FCCU joints are specially designed for every application in which they are used because any failure during installation can be hazardous to personnel and extremely expensive to users. Accepted specifications offer the basis for the design of the bellows and joint hardware of the FCCU joints.

Expansion Joints Keep your Production Moving

Expansion Joints Keep your Production Moving

Piping systems are the life blood of many heavy industrial markets. Any time air, gases, or liquids need to be moved, there is a heavy investment in the piping systems to get them from place to place.
Even in a food processing plant there is a need for specially heated piping systems to move corn syrup from its storage container to the processing area.
If you are trying to make a 2000 LB. batch of chocolate syrup and the pipe isn’t heated properly, then the corn syrup is not going to move in the pipes, and it may take 8 hours to start flowing.
Now, if you have hot and cold material handling lines in your plant, then you have expansion joints. You know your business, and you know that in order to be profitable, your system must run at maximum efficiency.
Metal expansion joints allow for both movement and containment in your plant so that stresses don’t built up and cause a problem at the wrong time. And even if you specifically set aside time for maintenance, problems seem to gravitate more toward the critical moments when you don’t need them.
Metal expansion joints allow for the flow of fluids or gases in your system under all the specified conditions they are designed for. Note I said “designed for.”
They won’t hold up to stress that is beyond rated capacity. Knowing the conditions and allowing for unforeseen conditions is the trick to a reliable system that will serve you consistently.
You can imagine that problems of a joint failure in a submarine, for example. Your situation may not be that “Mission Critical,” but hot oil spraying on the plant assembly area is no picnic either. It happens. I won’t go into the most efficient methods of cleaning up hot oil. That’s another story.
Metal expansion joints may experience one or a combination of lateral, axial, angular, or twisting movements. Your specs should take all these motions into account. Often an exterior restraining system will keep the joint itself from being over-stressed to the point of separating.
Every joint has its limits. There are engineering solutions for a number of inherent weaknesses in an expansion joint system. If a bellows is needed in a high pressure situation, an exterior chamber can be added to equalize the pressure both inside and out so that the weakness of the bellows structure is less of an issue.
In order to limit total movement, tie rods can form a limiting cage that keeps and expansion joint from going too far. Or a hinge can be added to one side of a joint which limits the motion to a very predictable plane of action that is easier to design for.
Rather than accommodate all motions at once, multiple expansion joints can be used in series either to add flexibility or to increase the total amount of motion tolerated. Sometime internal sleeves serve to protect the joint from materials that might interfere with its smooth operation.