Quality, safety and service are the driving forces of Ward Vessel and Exchanger.
The company's Gulf Coast (Houston) and East Coast (Charlotte, NC) locations provide a wide range of custom design, engineering and fabrication services, in addition to access to materials, temporary storage and reliable transportation for its clientele. Ward's Field Service Group and expert technical staff of trained and registered engineers are committed to zero defects, and adheres to the same industry standards as its competitors. Two notable project management insights of its team are:
Field-erected tanks
Often, when a customer has a need for an API 650 storage tank, the size or location is such that there is no practical way to shop-fabricate, transport, and/or install a fully-built tank. In times like these the need arises to build a tank in place from scratch or pre-fabricated sections.
Generally speaking, the tank's location and the resulting accessibility, along with the general working requirements and conditions of the facility, will dictate the complexity of the build, often more so than the design of the tank itself.
When a field-erected tank contractor is asked to bid on this type of work, a site walk is always recommended and often compulsory to ensure a full understanding of the challenges of each project. Cranes of varying sizes are required to build these tanks and many factors of the worksite combine to establish the size of crane needed - potentially dictating the schedule and driving prices higher.
It's important to realize the same tank can be built in different ways: bottom-up, top-down, temporarily-supported, etc. The fabrication methods employed are often left to the chosen contractor's site lead. At the end of the day, as long as API 650 is met, the way to go about building the tank is not terribly important, although it can drastically affect schedule and price.
Heat exchanger replacement
Ward was called on to evaluate and repair several heat exchangers in a solvent condenser system. The plant knew there were issues with at least one of these exchangers, because its shell-side water system was contaminated with solvent, creating a dangerous situation - the water had enough solvent in it to be flammable.
On test day, it was discovered that all three exchangers were leaking significantly due to multiple pinholes and cracks in many tubes. There were far too many tubes to plug to expect adequate performance from the system. At this point, the customer was in a bind, needing to restart the plant as quickly as possible, but wanting to solve its dangerous flammable water situation. Ward got to work on a solution, which included working closely with the customer to uncover the process needs in order to perform a thermal analysis to determine what size exchanger(s) would work in this application. Once established, Ward produced a new properly-sized exchanger within a couple of days.
Ward was mobilized to the site again, complete with a crane, where all three leaking exchangers were removed. The mounting structure for a single, larger exchanger was modified, the exchanger was installed, and necessary supply and return piping modifications were made to support the new unit. At the end of the day, the customer had a properly-designed single exchanger and a neatly laid-out piping system. All work occurred in less than one week after the discovery of the faulty existing equipment.
Consider Ward for field-erected tank projects, and count on the same level of service and general experience received on its shop-fabricated new equipment and other field services. Also, consider Ward for inspection, testing, design, fabrication and installation projects, and reap the benefits of a single-call solution with the right capabilities to handle complex issues, including evaluating, engineering, fabrication and installation of critical process equipment.
For more information, visit wardvesselandexchanger.com or call (704) 568-3001.
