Edmonton Valve & Fitting Blog

These five topics proved the most popular for the past year

A lot of our posts come with some great (free) downloads. We look back at our top customer downloads for 2018, including the Hand Tube Bender Manual - did you get your hands on all of them yet? 

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Some of the greatest resources on our website are the many downloads you can get for free. Fill out the form, click the "download" button, and you get tons of useful information at no cost.

A few of the most popular downloads are old favorites. There's no greater classic in fluid systems than the Swagelok Tube Fitter’s Manual. Author Joe Callahan had a 42-year-career at Swagelok. In fact, he started before the company was called Swagelok, and ended up as president, chief executive and chairman.

The Swagelok Tube Fitter's Manual balances theory and practical examples, making it a must-have reference for fluid system engineers, designers, and technicians, as well as students. Each of its 11 chapters covers a different aspect of a tubing system, including fittings, tubing, installation, and more.

The other classic is our Hand Tube Bender Manual.  Bending tubing by hand is often the fastest and simplest way to bend tubing. The Hand Tube Bender Manual explains step-by-step how to prepare, measure, and calculate, to perfectly execute the bends every time. Once you've learned how to do use it properly, Swagelok hand tube benders provide consistent, high-quality bends in tubing made from most materials used with Swagelok tube fittings.

Special subjects

But people also loved a couple of less-common items. Among them are our VCR & VCO Face Seal Catalogues. The VCR line is our metal gasket face seal fittings. In the catalogue you'll find typical VCR assemblies, pressure and temperature ratings, testing and cleaning information, and more. VCO is a line of O-ring face seal fittings. The VCO catalogue is likewise packed with technical data and testing information.

Visitors to our site also found the Swagelok Special Alloys PDF desirable. When you need parts made of titanium, 6-Moly or any of 10 other alloys, this is the place to start sorting through your choices. Swagelok has the industry knowledge, metallurgy expertise, quality reputation, layers of support, and skills in both design and manufacturing to assist with your job requirements. 

Expert advice

For a broad range of expert advice, our Training & Education page proved very popular.

Whether you need in-depth courses taught by expert instructors or training videos and online classes, Swagelok training equips your team to work safer and smarter. Topics include:

• Swagelok Essentials: Learn to build and maintain dependable systems, taught by Swagelok-certified trainers at locations and times convenient to you.
• Sampling System Training: Three courses that will help you diagnose, troubleshoot and eliminate sampling system design flaws.
• Advanced Tube Bending: Learn different methods of tube bending for both simple and complex offset bends with hand and bench-top tube benders.
• Tech Tips Videos: A wide range of Swagelok expertise at your convenience with our video library, with topics from tube bending assembly to regulator applications.

Are any of these downloads missing from your collection? This is a great time to fill in the gaps.

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In a hurry or have a question? Please get in touch (we respond fast):

If some of these posts don't sound familiar, this is a great time to catch up

With 2018 now at a close, we look back over the past year at what the most popular Swagelok blog topics were for our readers. 

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Here on our blog we like to emphasize variety. Sometimes we write about products, sometimes about services, sometimes about people. Most of the time we give you practical information, but we also like to have some fun once in a while.

Our blog allows us to go a little deeper into a subject from time to time. For instance, you've probably heard or read that you should never mix Swagelok components with those from another manufacturer. As we explained in June, there are several practical reasons, from workplace safety to keeping your warranty valid.

Then there's the topic of pressure ratings. Customers often ask us about how to find out the pressure rating of a particular Swagelok tube fitting. We explained three key questions back in August.

We also like to pass along tips for saving money. Anytime you require a special tool but don't want to shoulder the cost of buying it, inquire with us if you can rent it from Edmonton Valve. We have rental tools for a variety of jobs, including tools for installing cone-and-thread fittings. We can even train you to use them properly.

The right choices

Now that we're deep into winter again, it seems like a good time to revisit a post from last February about a great way to slay ice, the Steam Lance. Important to note that we fabricate steam lances right here in Edmonton in our Custom Solutions department, so we can make them exactly the length you want.

Sometimes it's hard to know exactly what you do want, especially when it comes to hose. Swagelok offers 18 series of hoses, in sizes ranging from 1/8 inch to 2 inch with more than 30 possible end connections. How can you select the combination that's best for your particular job? Use the Installer's Pocket Guide for Swagelok Hoses, which we described in March.

Those are some of the most popular posts from our blog in 2018. If you feel like you may have missed out on some other interesting topics, we have all our posts archived. Browse through them, then contact us if you'd like to learn even more about a particular topic. We're easy (and quick) to reach at 780-437-0640, or through the contact page on our website. 

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Free, expert advice on calculating the cost of fluid leaks at your facility

Most experienced professionals who work on fluid systems have dealt with thousands of fluid leaks. In strictly financial terms, how much have they saved their companies by stopping those leaks? How much more can be saved by ending and preventing leaks?

Leakage is expressed as a flow—a volume per unit of time, cm3/minute, gallons/day etc. The system fluid is the leakage vehicle. Therefore, the cost of a leak varies with what is leaking out (or, in the case of a vacuum system, leaking in).

One drop per second will add up to more than 400 gallons a year. For fluids costing, say, $5 a gallon, that can be up to $2,000 wasted every year.

And that's just from a single leak. If you've ever spotted one leak in a fluid system, it's very likely that that there are others hidden out of sight.

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Quick download

Even if fluid leaks don't result in fires, falls, and the like, leakage costs big money. Chapter Ten of the popular Swagelok Tube Fitter's Manual shows how to calculate it.

 

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But even when the only fluid involved is compressed air (a seemingly “free” fluid), it still means using extra power to keep the pressure up. A leak with an orifice of only 1/16 of an inch at 100 psig will waste 280,000 cubic feet in a month.

Indeed, at a cost of only 20 cents per thousand cubic feet, that's $672 wasted each year on "free" air from a single leak. Multiply these losses by the number of leaks in a facility, and the wasted money compounds quickly.

Benchmarks

Industry experts estimate that 100 million gallons of hydraulic oil are lost each year through leakage. All that lost lubrication accounts for millions of dollars in damaged equipment. That, of course, means lost production when machines are shut down for repair.

If the leak results in the loss of process gases, analyzer gases, nitrogen, helium, or hydrogen, it can mean the difference between profit and loss. These specialty gasses can have costs per cubic foot in orders of magnitude more expensive. That's in addition to the cost of improperly calibrated or operating instruments, which can result in off-spec product.

Erosion

Consider, too, that the same benefits that make steam useful make it a headache when the system has a leak. Aside from all the problems mentioned above for other fluids, steam has well-known erosive properties that usually make leaks grow larger with time.

And in the case of steam leaks, fuel cost and boiler efficiency tell less than half the story. Many factors in the steam system affect the cost of steam. They include fuel cost (lower-cost fuels result in lower steam cost ); operating steam pressure (lower operating steam pressure results in lower steam cost, while higher operating steam pressure requires more energy to produce the steam); and the percentage of make-up water or percentage of condensate return (normal condensate returns have a higher Btu content than make-up water; today’s industrial benchmark for condensate return is 90% if the plant is not injecting steam for the process).

The good news

A small leak can drain big dollars off the bottom line, and get worse over time. But there is a free resource that can help you calculate the cost of leaks in your unique operation. Download Hidden Cost of Leakage here.

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With a lifetime of field experience to draw on, he's a hit with our customers

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"In this field, the training is never ending as the technology is constantly evolving," says Don Yahn, one of the newest members on Edmonton Valve's Custom Solutions Field Engineer team. 

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Don Yahn, one of our newest team members in Custom Solutions Field Engineering Support, carries a lot of credibility when he talks to customers. For 34 years he worked at Shell Canada's Scotford Refinery, so he knows firsthand the complexity of dealing with fluid systems in the field.

Since the spring of 2018 he's been using that vast store of knowledge to support our Custom Solutions team and provide field engineering to our customers. Frequently that means traveling to customer sites with our sales associates to see where Custom Solutions might help customers with issues they may be having. It's not unusual for Yahn to suggest solutions that the customer never realized we could provide.

Listening to our customers

Yahn puts a lot of emphasis on listening to customers and then thinking back to when he may have dealt with a similar issue.

One recent visit started out with a discussion on issues the customer was having with pressure regulation on gas streams. It quickly evolved into a discussion regarding filtration and the frequency with which they were changing filters on multiple sample streams.

"I asked some basic questions, took that information away and did some research, and found they had been using the wrong filters all along," Yahn says. "They were just doing what the site had always been doing and hadn’t really questioned why they were changing filters so often."

Yahn's recommendation should reduce their maintenance workload significantly so the customer can focus on other priorities.

"Many of the issues I’ve seen thus far have been one’s I’m familiar with, so I’m comfortable having those discussions," he says. But he also has a wealth of industry research to draw on.

"In this field the training is never ending as the technology is constantly changing to keep up with the evolution of computing and processing of data," he says.

Industry experience

Yahn also has provided some basic design overviews for customers that aren't sure about certain issues or where to turn for support.

"Sometimes just a quick discussion or some email exchanges can help them move forward with making the changes, knowing that the issue was looked at and re-affirms their own thoughts," he says.

The deep knowledge Yahn possesses is hard to come by. He graduated from the Northern Alberta Institute of Technology back when there were less than 20 graduates from The Instrumentation Engineering Technology department. When he left Shell, he was Senior Instrument Technologist Major Projects.

He takes pride in always trying to "do the right thing" and having his contributions valued. He also takes pride in the acknowledgement that others have given him for passing along his experiences and helping their careers.

"In my career at Shell I was used to people coming to me with a problem and looking to me to come up with a solution," Yahn says. He sees his role at Edmonton Valve as an extension of that mentoring. "I make myself available to everyone at Edmonton Valve & Fitting if there’s an area where I can contribute to their success."

Interested in getting Don Yahn and our Field Engineering team out to your site? Contact us by clicking the "Message Us" below to get it set -up!

 

With no bending, welding or fitting required, hose saves a bundle on labour costs

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Hoses can manage an abundance of applications because of the wide variety of available materials and configurations. Download Swagelok's "Be Flexible - Hose is the Best Choice for Many Power Applications" PDF below.

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Flexible hose may be one of the most under-used components in a power plant. With the latest advances in hose technology, you can use hose in many places historically limited to tubing or pipe.

Swagelok hose is available in custom lengths up to 100 feet, in diameters 2 inches and under, and with a wide variety of end connections. With the proper selection of material options, hoses are completely dependable across a wide range of pressures and temperatures.

The principal benefit of hose is easy installation and easy replacement of adjoining components like valves. It’s just a lot easier to work with hose than with rigid tubing or hard pipe because there is no bending, welding, or fitting. As a result, you will save a lot on labour costs.

Hose is an excellent choice for these common applications in a power plant:

• Compressed and instrument air applications
• Connections to compressors, pumps, or other devices that cause vibration
• Connections to pneumatic actuators on large control valves
• Chemical tote offloading equipment
• Hydraulic and lube oil applications subject to vibration
• Pressurized gas delivery from tanks and cylinders
• Sample analysis systems that draw fluid from process lines
• Natural gas, diesel, or liquid fuel handling applications

What's in a hose?

Typically, hoses consist of a core, reinforcement, covers, and end connections. Core materials may be metal, fluoropolymer, thermoplastic, or rubber. Many power plant applications employ stainless steel cores, which offer corrosion resistance and high-temperature compatibility – up to 850˚F (454˚C).

Reinforcement layers – often stainless steel woven braid – improve pressure containment and flexibility. With stainless steel braid, hoses available from Swagelok can manage pressures up to 6000 psi!

In power plants, a silicone cover is often added in high-temperature applications to greatly reduce the likelihood of burns on contact.

Hoses can be fitted to a wide range of end connections, including tube adapters, tube fittings, VCR metal gasket face seal fittings, VCO O-ring face seal fittings, swivel fittings, NPT pipe threads, pre-swaged nuts and ferrules, tube butt welds, flanges, Kwik-Clamps, cam and groove, tube stubs, and more.

When to use a hose?

In a power plant there are many places where hose pays for itself very quickly:

• Connections Requiring Complex Tube Bending. Tube bending is not difficult, but it does require some tools and training. If your technicians do not have tube-bending skills, consider hose. Sometimes a replacement part does not have the same dimensions as the original, and the original section of tubing or pipe does not quite align with the new connections. You can sidestep a difficult or frustrating situation like this with hose.

• Applications with Severe Vibration. Hose can manage vibration stress better than tubing, especially when high pressures are in play. In a high-vibration application, a run of hose can dampen vibration between the source and the rest of the tubing assembly. It's important to note that not all hoses are suited for high vibration, so correct selection is critical. An Edmonton Valve hose specialist can help you select the right hose based on your application.

• Temporary Connections. Hose is an excellent choice for water sampling, chemical sampling for analysis, or for offloading chemicals from totes. It bypasses alignment issues associated with rigid pipe or tubing, and it can attach with a cam-lock or quick-connect.

• Moving Parts. Pneumatic actuators on some large control valves move up and down and therefore require a flexible connection to the compressed air source. There are many other such applications where you need to allow for some movement or flexing, and hose is your best or only choice.

• Parts Requiring Frequent Replacement or Servicing. In applications requiring frequent maintenance, tubing or hose may be appropriate, depending on the circumstances. Both can connect by way of Swagelok tube fittings, which can be disassembled and reassembled with the turn of a wrench. Gas turbine inspections, for example, require frequent assembly and reassembly of components. Metal hose makes this easier, enabling quick access for maintenance personnel.

We have an illustrated PDF brochure with more detail on how hose can enhance your performance and reduce maintenance. Or if you have any further questions about fluid systems, call Edmonton Valve and Fitting at 780-437-0640 or contact us by clicking the "Message Us" below.

 

Comprehensive training in tube fitting installation with Swagelok's Total Support Training Seminar

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To learn more about our Swagelok training classes, download a copy of our free training catalogue and find the class that suits your team's development.

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In 2018 we trained approx. 249 students in our Swagelok Total Support Training (STS) full-day course, and the year isn't over yet! Plus that doesn't include all of the students that participated in our "mini" training sessions held off-site at customer locations. 

This STS seminar emphasizes the importance of choosing the correct tubing and fittings for your specific job, along with training on the proper handling, preparing, and installation of those components. 

Theoretical vs. practical 

The ISO certified class is broken down into two sections, first theoretical and then practical. In the theoretical portion there are seven lessons that breakdown the history of the tube fitting, installation procedures, leakage, the dangers of intermixing and interchanging parts, installation tools, and more. 

The practical portion allows the students to get hands-on with a tubing system where they demonstrate bending and proper tube fitting installation techniques. One of the more exciting parts of this section is where students install both an end cap and reducing union on a piece of stainless steel tubing and put it in our 'burst chamber' to test how well it performs under pressure. 

What's included

The full-day course comes complete with a comprehensive work book, installer pocket guide, tube bender manual, inspection gauge, gripper pad, and marking device. Morning snacks and lunch will also be provided. After successful completion of the course the attendee will receive a certificate of completion (valid for 36 months).

2019 Training Dates

Below are the dates for the 2019 class offering for Swagelok's Total Support Training:

• January 10, 2019
• February 5, 2019
• March 7, 2019
• April 2, 2019
• May 2, 2019
• June 6, 2019
• September 6, 2019
• October 1, 2019
• November 7, 2019
• December 3, 2019

Don't see a class time that works for you? Do you have have a large number of employees looking to take the class? We can accommodate on-site training courses if you meet the requirements. Contact us today to get the process started. 

 

Back by popular demand, this two-day course will help you maintain your sampling systems peak performance

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The two-day training course, held in Edmonton Valve's training centre, will cover aspects of a sample system, from process line and tap through transport lines, steam switching, sample conditioning, analyzer and disposal.

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We are excited to be once-again hosting the Sample System Problem Solving and Maintenance Training (SSM) in the new year, on January 29th and 30th here in Edmonton, Alberta. This course is designed for Sampling System Technicians and Maintenance Personnel to gain knowledge in troubleshooting inaccuracies and inefficiencies in your fluid systems.

Experienced Swagelok instructor

This year we are bringing in a new face to teach the course, Mr. Phil Harris. Harris has worked in research & development, product development, and online analytical instrumentation for over 30 years. Along with teaching the SSM two-day course, he currently teaches internationally a five-day course on Process Analyzer Sample Systems (PASS) with Swagelok and Tony Waters. So, if you have any questions on sample systems, Harris is 'the' guy to answer them!

What to expect

Over the two-day period, you will be learning both the basics of sampling systems and getting that hands-on experience with the equipment. This includes:

Day 1 - Fundamentals: classwork and basic exercises

• Performance review of sample systems
• Diagnosing and fixing time delay problems
• In-depth look at system components

Day 2 - Sample conditioning techniques

• Design of field stations and fast loop systems
• Troubleshoot systems
• Group projects
• And more!

Included in the course fee covers all provided course materials, snacks, lunch, and beverages. 

Swagelok’s Sampling System Training (SSM) teaches both the fundamental and advanced practices in analytical instrumentation operation and maintenance. Register for the two-day course today to be empowered in your job for maintaining your sampling system with minimal error and with greater system integrity. Registration deadline is December 31st, 2018.

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Have a question before you register, send us a message!

 

Additional Swagelok expertise and resources for fluid system experts

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You can find the newest blog posts at https://www.swagelok.com/en/blog

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What's new?

Swagelok Company recently launched their newest 'hotspot' for all things fluid system related with their blog, "Swagelok Reference Point."

You can expect to see two to three new blogs post per month, so there will always be fresh content and relate-able blogs to your applications and industries. 

You can find topics such as:

• Analytical Instrumentation
• Fluid System Training
• Fluid System Safety
• Fluid System Evaluation

We at Edmonton Valve will be cross-referencing the blogs in our blog space too, so we will be keeping you up-to-date on the newest posts and relevant topics to our customers. 

We hope you enjoy this new online space - check out the Swagelok Reference Point blog today!

Get in touch

Have questions about this post, send us a quick email and we will be happy to assist.

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After a combined 80 years working with sampling systems, industry experts Tony Waters and Phil Harris reflect on the problems they've seen most

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In this video Tony Waters and Phil Harris discuss recurring maintenance problems, fundamental design issues, and hidden issues that hamstring customer operations. Get in touch for a collaborative, expert evaluation of your system by our team.

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Fluid system operators use grab sampling—aka spot sampling or lab sampling—to validate process conditions, check whether end products meet quality specifications, see if online analyzers are fit for use, and ensure product quality during custody transfers. It can also provide verification of environmental emissions. 

In all of these uses, capturing a representative sample is essential. But at some plants, recurring maintenance issues hamstring operations.

“Some of the installations, the customer’s been experiencing problems that require maintenance technicians to go and work on the device frequently, over and over, perhaps called out in the middle of the night or later on a weekend, because there’s been an issue with the analyzer,” says Phil Harris, an ISA Analysis Division Fellow and industry veteran who's authored numerous papers on analyzer systems, routinely presents at industry conferences and technical seminars, and brings extensive experience in nuclear energy, oil refining and alternative fuels applications.

Fundamental design issues are remarkably common, too. Those can lead to fluids being where they shouldn't be, or vice versa.

“[A design flaw] that comes to mind that we see all the time is that a line is supposed to be heated... but we find that it’s only half heated or not heated at all or the heating’s turned off," says Tony Waters, "or sometimes just the opposite: the thing is so hot that it’s causing the samples to polymerize or decompose in some way.”

Waters, who like Harris is an ISA Analysis Division Fellow, brings over 50 years of experience with process analyzers and sampling systems to his numerous training programs, which have been presented in many countries. He has also founded three companies and has worked in engineering and marketing roles for an analyzer manufacturer, end-user and a systems integrator. He periodically leads the Process Analyzer Sampling System (PASS) Course here in Edmonton.

Then there are cases of onsite pros not knowing that a process analyzer isn't doing its job—which might be the riskiest scenario.

“A process analyzer can actually look like it’s working but actually be doing nothing that’s valuable to anybody," Waters adds. "For instance, the time delay that we see on systems is quite enormous sometimes. Sometimes we’re talking about hours or even days of delay before they actually get the measurement.”

Three ways we can help you with sampling systems today

• Schedule an assessment. Improve your sampling systems reliability with expert, in-depth evaluation of your sampling systems, from tap to grab sample station
• Use our Grab Sample Product Selection Matrix. See a summary of common system criteria and the grab sample system recommended for each combination
• View our Grab Sampling Systems Application Guide. Browse the Swagelok grab sample system configurations available

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