logo

FPSO & Marine - DeltaV-Seals ensure the safe and reliable operation of inert gas systems

James Knights • March 14, 2025

A market-leading expert for the maritime industry manufactures a range of inert gas generators to suit their client's needs. Vessels carrying cargo-producing hydrocarbon vapors require inert gas generators to remove flammable and explosive atmospheres from their cargo tanks.



Vessels carrying cargo producing hydrocarbon vapour require an inerting solution to eliminate the risk of explosions and fires in the cargo tanks. This can be achieved by keeping the oxygen content below 8%, a standard set by IMO. The Maritime Protection Inert Gas Generator (IGG) system is a combustion solution that creates inert gas containing oxygen less than 5%.

Industry Challenges

Maritime Protection, a manufacturer of inert gas generators wanted the best available, proven, and approved gasket technology for its natural gas fired inert gas systems. The bolted flange joints in the natural gas piping must be resistant to vibration, maintenance-free, fire resistant, and require no re-torquing of the bolts throughout the joint’s lifetime. The DeltaV-Seal™ was the perfect fit, providing the client with a long-term fire safe gas tight seal.

Background

Vessels carrying cargo-producing hydrocarbon vapors require an inert solution to eliminate the risk of fires and explosions within their cargo tanks. Inert gas generators produce inert gas to reduce oxygen levels within the cargo tanks of FPSOs and other marine vessels. Given the critical nature of the performance of inert gas generators to the safety of ships worldwide, ensuring the reliability and integrity of the bolted flange joints is crucial to ensuring the long-term reliable performance of the inert gas generator.

Benefits

Hundreds of DeltaV-Seal™ flange gaskets have been supplied and installed within the bolted flange joints of the inert gas generators manufactured by the client as the DeltaV-Seal simplifies maintenance with no need to re-torque and proven resistance to vibration loading. Furthermore, the gasket has a known thickness before and after installation; this defined thickness has simplified the design of the piping and flanges within the inert gas generators.

Solutions

Pipeotech’s 316L stainless steel gasket is the perfect fit. The DeltaV-Seal ™ flange gasket is fully metallic, providing the tight and durable metal-to-metal seal the client requires. The gasket does not need re-torquing and has been proven gas-tight by several independent industry tests. Furthermore, the gasket has been tested and proven resistant to pressure and vibration cycles, certified by DNV GL (Certificate TAP000003B). All DeltaV-Seals are certified as fire-safe per API6FB.

Download the full case study

Download the case study by clicking the link below:

Replacing legacy gasket technology to increase reliability and reduce maintenance costs

By James Knights • March 17, 2025
Fertilizers are critical to enable the growing global population to be fed. Ongoing increases in energy prices, particularly methane, have made the cost of manufacturing nitrogen and ammonia-based fertilizers particularly high. Anything a manufacturer can do to reduce costs, reduce NOX emissions, and increase reliability has a positive global impact, ensuring a secure and long-term food supply while at the same time increasing reliability and reducing maintenance costs.

Replacing legacy semi-metallic gasket technology to prevent emissions of hazardous chemicals

By James Knights • March 17, 2025
Ammonium Nitrate is a challenging chemical to seal, in addition to being extremely hazardous. When Ammonium Nitrate emissions escape from bolted flange joints it crystalizes. These crystals of Ammonium Nitrate are a safety hazard and undesirable. Further to this the Ammonium Nitrate crystals can form inside the pipe, reducing flow and productivity. To remove the crystals of Ammonium Nitrate inside the piping, steam cleaning is utilized. This increases the degradation of legacy semi-metallic gaskets leading to an increased leakage rate, which results in more emissions, more crystals, and a cycle of avoidable costly maintenance.

Replacing legacy gasket technology to prevent the ingress of oxygen into a vacuum system

By James Knights • March 17, 2025
A leading chemical manufacturer sought a superior gasket to replace the current semi-metallic gasket utilized throughout this specific vacuum system. For this system it is crucial to prevent oxygen from entering the vacuum system as it would cause oxidation of the piping contents and compromise the entire batch of chemicals, leading to it being wasted. The DeltaV-Seal, known for its tightness and durability, prevents oxygen from entering the system through the bolted flange joints. This ensures that the product passed through the piping system is not contaminated by oxygen from the bolted flange joints, providing a superior quality end product.

DeltaV-Seal - Reducing fugitive emissions in the Permian Basin

By James Nights • March 14, 2025
The United States Clean Air Act (CAA) is the comprehensive federal law regulating emissions from stationary and mobile sources.  Among other things the CAA authorises the United States Environment Protection Agency (EPA) to establish National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) to protect the public health and public welfare as well as regulate emissions of hazardous air pollutants. The DeltaV-Seal effectively removes fugitive emissions fugitive emissions from connections, this case study details how.

COMSOL Multiphysics FEA Modelling of Gasketed Bolted Flange Joints

By James Knights • March 14, 2025
Imagine a future where in extreme environments it is possible to model and simulate a gaskets performance and know the lifetime of a bolted flange joint, sealed with a DeltaV-Seal. Pipeotech's Engineering and Technical team have been working to make the modelling and simulation of a gasket a possibility. Being able to simulate the performance of a bolted flange joint, and provide a defined lifetime has huge financial benefit to industry, maximising the time between turnarounds, extracting maximum value from their assets.

The simple replacement for Spiral Wound and Kammprofile gaskets

By James Knigjt • March 14, 2025
The DeltaV-Seal gasket replaces spiral wound and Kammprofile gaskets with a metal-to-metal seal without any of the challenges of traditional sealing technologies. As a metal-to-metal seal the leakage rate is extremely low, preventing fugitive emissions and ensuring we all breathe cleaner air.
More Posts
Share by: