Solutions
Overview
Not all orders we receive are for new equipment or straightforward repairs. Genfabco also receives orders to conduct repairs to existing installations. Often, old technologies have been updated or superseded by newer technologies, making the solution a real challenge.
These jobs may not require a complete replacement or technological change. Sometimes, the old solution has outlasted initial expectations and delivered impressive performance. In such cases, our team works to understand the goals of the original design – and how the original designer would have used today’s knowledge and materials to bring the equipment in line with modern standards.
Manufacture and replace
tubing for extended surface
waste heat boiler
The challenge
In this recent case, Genfabco was able to successfully manufacture replacement tubing for a 70+ year-old extended surface waste heat boiler operating in a very corrosive environment. The owner was satisfied with the waste heat boiler’s extra-long life in service and high efficiency, and thus preferred to refurbish it to original specifications.
Our Solution
Genfabco advanced the unit’s design by ensuring the replacement parts conformed with the latest material standards. CNC equipment helped greatly to make the components. We returned all components to original dimensions modified over years of patching and quick fixes applied by the owner/operators to get extra life out of the equipment, re-created the technology of the past at today’s level, and successfully assembled the components.
The bulky and costly peripherals, and structural steel and brick work was salvaged. Large amounts of resources were saved. Time was saved. The equipment got a second life.
Specialized heat treatment
for stress, corrosion and
cracking (SCC) resistance
Genfabco had to redesign and manufacture a tower being used in an SCC-prone system to correct flaws in the original design that had carried over for many decades – at the cost of needing frequent parts replacements.
The challenge
This work involved another old design. A tall slender tower with an aspect ratio of 1:25, starting at one third of its height, was being used for direct contact heat exchange and operated in an extreme service environment. Since its inception and through years of competitive fabrication, the design intention had run afoul; the tower would bend into an arch considerably out of vertical. Life in service ran from two to five years at most. The service process required specialized heat treatment of the completed tower – one issue that led to early failure.
Our Solution
The tower’s design for resistance to SCC had been developed by smart engineering in mid-20th century and had never been updated. Genfabco successfully implemented minor design changes to prevent arching, and developed an updated heat treatment suitable for the application. After 11 years, nearing 100,000 hours of operation logged by the first of three towers without failures, we now dare to call it a success.
Redesigning a recirculation
air lift
The challenge
This interesting case involved a recirculation air lift designed in the 1930s internal to a pressure vessel reacting with very corrosive and extremely erosive fluids. Changes to throughput over the years had taken the recirculation loop out of its original parameters.
Our Solution
There is no good solution available for this application if we use modern pumping equipment and materials. However, our redesign for the new operating conditions and parameters worked like magic with a substantial increase in service life, a sizeable reduction in lost time and maintenance costs with minimum increase in replacement parts cost.
