Valve repair--rfid, fugitive emissions, best practices

RFID

RFID technology holds much promise for the valve industry and is especially promising in maintenance and repair. Brent Scheps, president, and Cory Foster, sales representative at IDS Tag enumerated the benefits RFID technology has for the valve industry and explained how such technology is used during a repair.

While RFID technology has been around since the 1960s, it recently became sophisticated enough to ­provide valuable information far beyond the number of widgets in a warehouse, in both active (information can be sent and received) and passive (for tracking) forms, he pointed out. Tags are just a computer chip and an antenna that can be housed in anything: a steel container, pipes, anywhere. Even with a passive tag, as long as that tag is intact, it is readable, he said.

RFID tags, which are custom fit to a facility and its needs and are designed for maximum accuracy, reliability and durability, are becoming increasingly important in all industries, including valves. The technology provides a unique number that prohibits counterfeiting and any purchaser can find out if it’s a valid piece of equipment by tracing that number. RFID also makes it much easier to track the history of the equipment throughout the supply chain. Additionally, all of the documentation for the repair or replacement of any asset, such as a pressure relief valve, can be housed in the chip. That means maintenance turnaround times and the costs associated with them are greatly reduced. Information can also be added in the field to the “file” that is in that tag so that maintenance and repair can be updated.

FUGITIVE EMISSIONS

Testing for fugitive emissionsRich Davis, business development manager at Flexitallic Sealing Technologies, has been involved in the creation and implementation of test standards covering fugitive emissions since 1990. He shared insights on those standards with attendees at the conference. One of those standards is API 622, which establishes requirements and parameters for tests of fugitive emissions, corrosion and packing material composition and properties. The test methods apply to valve packing for use in on-off valves with rising stems and rotating stems. Davis pointed out that this standard is not intended to replace type testing of valve assemblies or valve production testing, and that valves can no longer be tested to API 622—the test applies only to packing. For packing, the test means that a test fixture is subject to a total of 1,510 mechanical cycles and five thermal cycles over five days.

Davis also talked about API 624, a new standard currently under development for type testing of rising stem valves equipped with flexible graphite packing for fugitive emissions. The standard specifies the requirements and acceptance criteria (100 parts per million by volume) for fugitive emission testing of rising and rising-rotating stem valves equipped with packing previously tested in accordance with API Standard 622. The standard is key “because now you know that the packing that goes into the valve must have already been tested by 622,” Davis said. “This reinforces the fact that the packing manufacturers must be doing the testing. It is not the valve or refurb or repair companies [that must test]—it is the packing companies.”

The test is only 310 mechanical cycles and three thermal cycles.

BEST PRACTICES

In their presentation, Bob Donalson, operations manager, North America Oil and Gas Service, and Kevin Simmons, global service and aftermarket ­manager, Pressure Management Group at Pentair, discussed maintenance and repair programs for pressure relief valves, pointing out that much goes into the true cost besides the initial product cost.

Be sure to check VALVEmagazine. com for more in-depth coverage of some of the presentations from the 2012 Valve Repair Council Repair Meeting & ­Exhibition.

From internet