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Tray panels with worn hole openings
Innovation in the energy and petrochemical industries has always been a relentless pursuit with ever-evolving challenges. After all, minimizing a plant’s unit outage time and equipment repair costs is vital for meeting operational performance targets, and business financial goals.
Finding innovative custom solutions, such as fabricating both replacement and custom process internals that go inside a plant’s reactors, towers or pressure vessels, including mass transfer and separation products, is one of the main ways to service the energy, refining, chemical and process industries.
It’s a given that after time, older plants across the industry will have recurring equipment problems and will frequently need to order rush tray panels and large quantities of replacement tray valves. In discovery, repair crews often identify common equipment problems with older moving valve trays.
A tray deck repair washer is installed on this existing tray deck
With years of constant operation, the moving valves can slowly enlarge the tray panel openings that hold them in place. When valves are simply replaced in existing enlarged panel holes, they either aren’t able to function smoothly due to overbending for a secure install, or they don’t stay mounted. If the valves aren’t able to move freely — or even worse, don’t stay mounted to the tray panels — the whole tower’s performance is impacted.
Because this problem is typically found on discovery during unit outage inspections, plants end up needing to order new, custom-made rush replacement tray deck panels, often requiring additional outage days and unplanned expenses.
This recurring problem is what sparked the idea for a tray deck repair washer — one that could quickly and reliably fix this common problem. This new type of washer bends into the existing enlarged tray panel holes, allowing field crews to repair existing panels during turnaround discovery with no special tools, extra manpower, delays, welding or large unplanned expenses.
In fact, this product can save days of wait time and hundreds of field crew labor hours. Instead of ordering entirely new, custom tray panels from a manufacturer hundreds of miles away — and taking several field crew members’ time to safely remove large old panels, wait on new panels and re-install them — one person can make the needed repairs in just a few hours.
Woven Metal Products-patented tray deck repair washers. Pictured left is before install and right is bent into position
When it comes to tower or vessel maintenance and repair, increased labor, time and unplanned purchases add up to significant expenses. The large, aging population of installed tower trays in the industrial sector — some up to 50 years old — are still found in many plants around the country.
The washers are available in many metal alloys and shapes to match existing tray valves.
Woven Metal Products, a leading industry solutions provider, has sold thousands of its patented tray deck washers for installation since 2018. The repair washer design is simple, yet effective, and can handle discovery repairs until the plant is ready to plan for its future equipment needs.
“This entire project came about simply by talking to and understanding our customers and their daily challenges — and ultimately their product needs,” said Robert Lasser, vice president of Woven Metal Products’ Tower Division. “That’s what sets our team at WMP apart: our expertise, passion and commitment to understanding all aspects not only of product fabrication, but also field installation, unit outages and more.”
To learn more about Woven Metal Product’s tray deck repair washer technology, visit WovenMetal.com
