Our high-performance solutions meet the critical performance specifications of refineries, petrochemical, oil and gas, LNG, PTA, polypropylene, and other chemical or industrial process plants.
We use pipe or duct expansion joints for tube or duct dynamic thermal expansion, based on the pipelines thermal coefficient.
Engineering designs the pipe length and introduces loops or bends to take up the expansion naturally by allowing it to expand with the pipe’s natural flexibility – typically half a degree in the perpendicular direction.
We can absorb pipe expansion either axially, laterally or in an angular direction. Depending on the layout of the pipe, we employ the most optimum solution for the application. Other factors we consider in expansion joint specification include anchors, guides, and local site conditions, for a given application.
We work with you to design and engineer the best technical solution in combination with the most economic outcome.
There are several aspects to consider in the expansion joint specification process; thrust forces created due to expansion joints, guides enabling the pipe to expand linearly, vibration, maintenance access and inspection requirements.
The element of an expansion joint typically has five design variables: the height and pitch of the convolution, thickness of element, number of layers of convolutions, and convolution quantity.
With these design variables we can achieve the right design for the given application. The total movement capacity of the expansion joint bellows is proportional to the number of convolutions. We distinguish expansion joints by type – either a restrained or unrestrained type.
These absorb pressure thrust forces with mechanical fixed restraint hardware. This type of joint is used primarily to absorb lateral or angular movements in a pipeline.
These do not absorb pressure thrust forces. Pressure thrust force is the the impact of the mean area of expansion joint and the internal pressure. This force is higher than the hydraulic force of a pipe due to the increased area of the expansion joint. This type of joint is used to absorb axial movement in a pipeline. With a combination of unrestrained and restrained metal expansion joints, most piping thermal expansion challenges can be solved. There is no restriction to pressure or temperature using metal expansion joints.
We can manufacture metal expansion joints in austenitic stainless steel, nickel cobalt, hastelloy, titanium and monel material to suit all plants such as food & beverage, pharma, steel, refinery, petrochemical and chemical & industrial processing plants.