Flanges play an important part in major industries such as pipelines and power plants, petrochemicals, oil and gas, and many others. The maintenance tasks include facing flanges and controlling bolting to stop leaks and minimize losses.
To minimize downtime for flanges and loss of production, A plant must be outfitted with the tools necessary to maintain flanges. In this article, we’ll review the essential tools to ensure that maintenance tasks can be completed as fast as possible.
Flange Facing Tools
In our earlier article, facing flanges is the most important maintenance task for flanges, which helps to repair damaged flanges. Since flanges will always be damaged from turbulent impacts and flow into other components during construction, installation, or cuts caused by gasket leaks. Flange facing tools can be used to cut flanges, giving them a grooved spiral.
The finish helps ensure that the joint is solid and reduces the chances of leaks since gas and liquids are forced to travel along a spiral, rather than across the face of the flange. These tools can be positioned either way i.e., ID or mounting via OD.
The tools can be used for various applications, such as repairing the flange of a heat exchanger, creating new grooves, repairing ring grooves, refacing flanges for valves, boiler feed pumps flanges, and so on.
Torque Wrenches
Another tool that needs to be valued is torque wrenches. They are just as crucial as flange-facing tools. Because bolts are also prone to loosen because of the constant vibrations in the flange, bolts must be tightened correctly to minimize the chance of bolts breaking.
Hydraulic hoses play a pivotal role in transmitting fluid power in machinery. Much like flanges, they need precise and dependable connections to function efficiently. Ensuring bolts are tightened correctly, especially in flange connections, reduces the risk of hydraulic hose failures and consequential leaks.
These tools guarantee that the bolts are tightened in flanges with control and prevent the possibility of leaks through a constant bolt load.
To ensure that bolts are properly controlled for controlled bolting, we suggest using power torque tools such as pneumatic, hydraulic, and battery torque wrenches, over clicker wrenches, or manual ones. Since power torque wrenches can provide more accuracy with less effort time, effort, and labor for precise bolting. Manual torque wrenches don’t provide controlled Torquing, which increases the chance of leaks.
Hydraulic torque wrenches provide the best precision, i.e., +/-3%. We verify the quality of bolt tightening through hydro testing. This method pumps liquids and gases into the flanges under different pressures to conduct a leakage test.
Flange Spreaders
Flange spreaders are devices that are used to prepare flanges to be used for maintenance. They are tools that are used to make flanges open prior to facing. Brands such as Equalizer provide ATEX certified spreaders in susceptible industries such as power, oil and gas, and petrochemicals.
These spreaders allow operators to open flanges easily, with no gaps for access and no risk of injury. The tool will help reduce the time for maintenance while increasing security.
Flange Pullers
Flange pullers are different from the spreaders of flanges. They can easily open and close the flanges. Ideally used for post facing flanges and other flange maintenance tasks, Flange pullers are made to work all vertical and horizontal Flanges, including API, SPO, BS, DIN, and ANSI/ASME.
Similar to spreaders for flanges, they are also portable, easy to set up and use, and can cut down on maintenance time and increase security.
Flange Aligners
Flange alignment tools can resolve the alignment of lateral or rotated flanges within joints, preventing leakages. Compared to the conventional method using flange aligners, flange aligners provide an easier and more secure method to align flanges.
RIVERLAKE is the leader in providing essential tools for flange facing and other maintenance operations, offering a range of products designed to make your job easier. Their range of professional grade machines and accessories are designed to last, with no compromise on quality or performance.
With their comprehensive selection of machinery, we can provide you with a solution tailored to your specific needs. Whether you need a flange facing machine or other maintenance equipment, you can count on RIVERLAKE for reliable and top-of-the-line products.
