New products

Vol. 227 No. 10

Inlet safety screens

The Lee Company’s new Hi-Bar Inlet Safety Screen offers a new alternative for inlet filter screen design by incorporating the screen directly into the fitting. This design significantly minimizes space and weight, and offers greater flow and dirt-holding capacity than the traditional method of having the screen installed in the manifold directly below the fitting. The screen is machined entirely from 15-5PH stainless steel and is rugged enough to withstand pressure differentials up to 6,000 psi without burst or collapse. Available in -4, -6 and -8 configurations, each component is 100% proof pressure-tested to ensure reliable, long-term performance. Six standard hole sizes, ranging from 0.003-in. (75 micron) to 0.020-in. (500 micron) diameter, are available.

Marine fire-fighting system

A brochure from FOGTEC details the company’s high- pressure water mist fire-fighting systems. Water mist is the most effective and reliable extinguishing agent for the protection of accommodation and machinery areas on-board ships and oil platforms. The key to FOGTEC’s fire-fighting effectiveness is the generation of very fine water droplets, which make the system highly effective and uses only small amounts of water. The key factors are the ability to cool and the localized oxygen displacement. The strong cooling effect serves not only to fight the fire, but also to protect persons and equipment against the effect of radiated heat, which makes the system particularly suitable for use on oil platforms. The system can be activated immediately after detection of the fire without any pre-warning time, either automatically or manually in accordance with individual requirements.

Buoyant rigid risers

Balmoral Offshore Engineering developed a specialized high-performance rigid riser series, Durafloat, comprising an advanced composites, high-impact protective skin and residual integrity system. The system is designed to minimize the risk of cracking and fracture while delivering high-performance uplift, or buoyancy in extreme conditions. Product benefits include: rugged performance through the high-impact, composite integral shell; durability from the high-performance syntactic foam body; comprehensive flexing ability through innovative design; strength at critical stress points by incorporating localized composite reinforcement; and unique stacking and storage capability.

Low-cost, high-pressure fittings

Parker Instrumentation has introduced Phastite fittings, a new design of tube fitting for industrial equipment involving fluids. Assembled by a simple push-fit operation, the new fittings provide permanent connections for fluid systems operating at up to 20,000 psi (1,379 bar). For permanent connections, and these elevated pressures, system builders would typically use welded or cone-and-thread style fittings, which are time-consuming and costly. Compared to these products, the company estimates that its fittings could reduce installation costs by a factor of 90% or more. Phastite employs a compression assembly principle using a novel form of toothed profile, which makes the seal. The fittings are supplied as one-piece components. To make a joint, it is only necessary to insert the tube, and then push the collar along the fitting body until it reaches a dead stop, an operation performed by a handheld hydraulic tool, and taking only a few seconds. Inside Phastite fittings is a unique sealing system, based on a collar that slides along an angled body, in the process compressing a number of circular profiles into the tubing. At the end of the short travel is a vertical face which provides confirmation of correct assembly.

Ultra-short tailfin fairings

Ocean currents are known to cause vortex-induced vibration (VIV) in risers, which can bring about their premature failure through joint fatigue. Fairings are used to reduce VIV, but they generally cover the riser completely, are heavy, and take a long time to install. New short and ultra-short tailfin fairings cut riser installation time without compromising performance. Because the new lightweight fairings, developed by Shell Global Solutions, consist of just the tail portion and fastening straps, installation time is cut by three to five times, compared with traditional fairings.

Compact flow meter

McCrometer’s V-Cone Flow Meter now conforms to the API’s 22.2 Testing Protocol for differential pressure flow measurement devices. The flow meter requires virtually no recalibration or maintenance over an exceptionally long life. It accurately measures disturbed flow and doesn’t require the upstream and downstream pipe runs of other flow meters. Designed for liquid, steam or gas measurement and tough applications, the flow meter supports a wide range of oil and gas production, pipeline and refining applications. It is highly compact, and designed with no moving parts to keep operating costs down. It relies on an advanced differential pressure flow technology designed with built-in flow conditioning to achieve an accuracy of +0.5%, with a repeatability of +0.1%. It operates over a flow range of 10:1, and comes in line sizes from 0.5 to 120 in. It features a centrally-located cone inside a tube. The cone interacts with the fluid flow and reshapes the velocity profile to create a lower pressure region immediately downstream.

Low-power instruments

Moore Industries’ low-power instruments are specifically designed to operate reliably in remote sites in the oil and gas industry, survive harsh environmental conditions, and operate with battery and solar power. Instruments are available for monitoring and controlling temperature, pressure and flow conditions at oil and natural gas well sites. Typical applications include coalbed methane and natural gas wellheads; oil and gas processing, storage and transport; and tank and pipeline cathodic protection. The instruments have low power requirements and ambient temperature specifications of – 40°C to +85°C, allowing them to be used in remote sites that have no protection from the weather. The low-power instruments include: models EPX2 voltage-to-pressure (E/P) and IPX2 current-to-pressure (I/P) converters to control valves, using natural gas as the pressure source, both of which offer output ranges of 3 – 15, 0 – 30 and 6 – 30 psig; bimental thermometer that can measure temperatures with optional RTDs or thermocouple sensors, and connect to an LRX temperature transmitter; an ECA alarm module that operates on 12V DC, draws only 5mA maximum, and provides a single transistor output; LRX temperature transmitter that accepts signals from RTDs, thermocouples and mV sources; NCS computer and data concentrator that runs on 12V DC at 500mA; and ECT signal isolators, converters and repeaters, which provide isolation and condition, convert, split and boost signals.

Corrosion inhibitor

Houghton International has introduced Cosmoline PTC, a new water-based coating that inhibits rust and corrosion on pipes and tubing. When applied during the manufacturing process, the product improves the ability of pipes and tubing to resist uniform corrosion (rust) and localized pitting corrosion. General corrosion is caused by water and gases in the air, while pitting corrosion comes from acids produced by bacterial action on organic materials on the surface of the pipe. Cosmoline PTC is formulated with organic materials that resist this type of bacterial action. The coating contains no nitrites, and is water-based for easy recycling and disposal.

Modbus system

FreeWave Technologies, a designer and manufacturer of spread spectrum radios, released its FGRIO Modbus system, its newest communications protocol. The FreeWave FGRIO Modbus multipoint network enables direct analog and digital wireless connections to all FGRIO functions, and eliminates the need for wire between the host and the RTU. The FGRIO Modbus master radio supports more I/O points of access, with up to 246 slave radios, each of which supports two analog inputs, two digital inputs and two digital outputs on a single network. The system’s 20-bit analog conversion ensures high accuracy between each slave radio’s analog inputs, and its repeater capability efficiently avoids link obstructions between radios. Also Freewave’s new solar power kit is available, which allows for significantly reduced set-up time for its radio systems. The kit is composed of a 5W, 12V solar panel and comes with clear, easy-to-use instructions as well as all necessary hardware and wiring, for quicker and easier setup.