Diamond Refractory Services (Diamond) has been completing routine maintenance and scheduled and emergency turnarounds within the industrial sector since 1999. Over the years, Diamond has completed more than 125 FCCU turnarounds, with 2 million man-hours spent on FCCUs alone. Most of Diamond's plant-wide outage projects include demolition, surface preparation, welding of refractory anchors, installing various types of materials, intricate brick work on sulfur recovery units, and extensive work on heaters and boilers.
With year-round maintenance projects increasing, Diamond has continued to add to its portfolio of services to meet customers' demands. One example of the many services Diamond offers is fireproofing, an ongoing necessity for industrial environments everywhere.
Diamond's fireproofing experts offer installation and maintenance services and products that meet the most stringent UL1709 fireproofing standards and performance requirements. Whether for concrete and cementitious, gunite, fibrous or intumescent materials, Diamond has the capabilities and technical expertise necessary to deliver durable, high-quality fireproofing solutions.
"Our fireproofing teams have significant experience working in a range of industrial markets including the refining, petrochemical and chemical industries," said Chase Drake, president of Diamond Refractory Services. "Fireproofing is an essential line of defense, helping to mitigate factors that would escalate a fire such as structural failures or overheating pressure vessels."
According to Drake, cementitious fireproofing makes up a large portion of Diamond's work, but intumescent fireproofing is being performed more often due to its ability to limit steel corrosion under fireproofing. Diamond can address the needs of industrial environments everywhere, but the company has performed a majority of its fireproofing services in Texas and Louisiana. One of its jobs in Louisiana, led by project manager Aaron Mayeux, consisted of 18,500 man-hours, while another job in Texas, led by project manager Jon Broussard, tallied 40,650 man-hours and is ongoing.
In addition to these jobs, two other FCCU projects are being led by senior project managers Ray Kirkpatrick and Tommy Motichek.
"We have the know-how necessary to identify the unique fireproofing needs of industrial environments, understand the complex performance characteristics of the products we apply, and deliver solutions durable enough to endure the day-to-day rigors of the industrial sector," Drake said.
Diamond has developed an in-house fireproofing maintenance program, which can be utilized to perform individual unit or plant-wide assessments of fireproofing needs. With this information, Diamond can develop a project scope and provide budgetary information to complete the work.
In 2017, OSHA began enforcing its new silica standard for the construction industry. OSHA's Respirable Crystalline Silica Standard for Construction requires employers to limit worker exposure to respirable crystalline silica and take other steps to protect workers. According to Drake, Diamond has met this challenge head on.
"We've created silica containment procedures and equipment and used atmospheric monitoring equipment to ensure that exposure limits remain under permissible levels," Drake said. "We have close relationships with material manufacturers, allowing us to ensure proper application in a wide range of environments."
For its mobile mixing trailer, Randy Major, vice president of operations, implemented one of the engineering controls with design input from Aaron Mayeux. This trailer provides customers with cost-saving benefits by eliminating temporary mixing stations/tents, while satisfying these new OSHA requirements. Benefits of the mobile mixing trailer include:
- No CO2 exposure from gas engine
- Self-contained filter system
- All electric (480v 3-phase)
- No stationary mixing enclosure tying up valuable real estate
- Mobile
- Minimal setup time
- Only one employee exposed to respirable silica
For one project in Louisiana, Diamond cross-trained existing cementitious fireproofers to install intumescent fireproofing. Diamond purchased two pneumatic pail mixers for intumescent fireproofing and designed and built mobile mixing trailers. These trailers contained HEPA filtration systems, collecting respirable silica dust generated when mixing cementitious fireproofing.
It's also important to note that Diamond has paired its fireproofing/ refractory services with other EMCOR Industrial Services (EIS) companies such as AltairStrickland, Repcon, Ohmstede and Performance Mechanical. To that end, Diamond is currently working with Repcon on a maintenance project and is set to join AltairStrickland on multiple FCCU outages.
For more information, visit their website, email turnkey@diamondrefractory.com or call (713) 378-9200.
