Case Studies
Case Studies
Since 1965, Swagelok Pittsburgh | Tri-State Area has helped make a profound and positive difference in the fluid-system safety, efficiency, and performance for customers in the key industries we support: Oil & Gas, Chemical, Petrochemical, Steel, Power, Research…
Here are multiple recent examples where proven Swagelok Solutions saved significant time, money, and worry – despite major application/operational challenges:
Market: Chemical R&D
Challenge: A global manufacturer of highly or fully automated equipment such as catalyst testing tools to improve or test processes for Chemical research and development, needed to secure components that would not fail.
Solution: Swagelok products delivered the unquestioned safety, premium quality, and utmost reliability required to meet the rapid responses and precise output times expected by our customer’s end users.
Market: Chemical & Refining
Challenge: A major Chemical & Refining customer faced substantial shaft seal leakage on a centrifugal liquid ring compressor.
Solution: Swagelok Rotating Equipment experts were consulted – and quickly helped produce drawings for a dual API Plan 32 seal flush panel.
Market: Oil & Gas
Challenge: A long-time major Swagelok customer routinely purchased only tube fittings, valves, tubing, and other products.
Solution: Swagelok highly skilled fabrication specialists helped with design and build proficiencies for numerous complex assemblies, freeing up the customer’s technicians to focus on higher-value jobs.
Market: Petrochemical
Challenge: A major Petrochemical customer was employing sample cylinders to collect gas samples from its plant for truck transport to a lab for testing and analysis.
Solution: Swagelok product-line experts were brought onsite to audit the current collection methodology, working collaboratively with the site’s maintenance personnel.
Market: Petrochemical
Challenge: A major Petrochemical customer battled a significantly leaking seal support system, resulting in highly unprofitable ethylene production.
Solution: Swagelok Field Engineers visited and quickly converted all plant piping to tubing, thus creating a standardized seal support process that was far more efficient and enabled easier upgrades to the overall system as well.
Market: Oil & Gas
Challenge: A large Oil and Gas customer faced a major and urgent issue: A stainless steel 316 fitting had been intermixed with a 2507 material tube during a turnaround.
Solution: Swagelok FK Series Tube Fittings were immediately put into service to replace all existing high-pressure and intermixed styles.
Market: Alternative Fuels
Challenge: A major manufacturer of specialty diaphragm gas compressors for the global alternative energy market, especially hydrogen fuel production for cars, buses, trucks, forklifts, drones, trains, and, soon, heavy-duty construction vehicles, cannot afford lapses in the high quality standards set by its ever-demanding customers.
Solution: First, partner with a true solutions supplier who can provide not only premium components to make your products, but a company you can depend on for more than leak-tight, ultra-reliable,
cost-effective Tube Fittings and accessories.
Market: Alternative Fuels
Challenge: A leading manufacturer of automation, flow metering, and gas quality equipment for extremely low-temperature applications – located in one of the world’s harshest climates – needed to find and rely on a components supplier that could consistently deliver products of utmost/unparalleled quality and dependability.
Solution: We provided our renowned Swagelok Process Analyzer Sampling System training to the site’s engineers, giving them the necessary skills and know-how to better build analyzers that will prevent costly sampling errors for secure, ultra-accurate, and timely results.
Market: Oil & Gas
Challenge: A leading manufacturer of automation, flow metering, and gas quality equipment for extremely low-temperature applications – located in one of the world’s harshest climates – needed to find and rely on a components supplier that could consistently deliver products of utmost/unparalleled quality and dependability.
Solution: We provided our renowned Swagelok Process Analyzer Sampling System training to the site’s engineers, giving them the necessary skills and know-how to better build analyzers that will prevent costly sampling errors for secure, ultra-accurate, and timely results.
Market: Oil & Gas
Challenge: A major Petrochemical customer urgently needed to reduce production costs, particularly its utility gas consumption.
Solution: Using our proven ultrasonic leak detector and other standard auditing equipment, our expert Energy Evaluators spent weeks onsite at the facility’s six gas units.
Market: OEM
Challenge: A global refrigerant maker needed to maintain its premier-quality product reputation and consistency but had to determine a way to get its wares faster to market – while adhering to extremely strict environmental-protection protocols.
Solution: Swagelok Grab Sampling Panels were employed to better ensure that during production, our customer’s end products, all highly corrosive and toxic, could not escape to atmosphere, thus endangering workers and the workplace.
Market: Oil & Gas
Challenge: A major Oil and Gas company required componentry that would provide unfailing, ultra-reliable, leak-tight performance while withstanding 15,000 psi operating pressures on the firm’s nine chemical injection skids – each with 1,500 connections (or 1,500 potential leaks points per skid).
Solution: Swagelok FK-Series Gaugeable, Compression Tube Fittings, made of 316 stainless steel, for temperatures up to
1,000º F, and for working pressures up to 20,000 psi, feature a two-piece design, with a female body and a preassembled cartridge containing a male nut and color-coded front and back ferrules for simple and proper installation.
Market: Chemical
Challenge: A Swagelok Chemical account was struggling mightily with rising operational costs due to argon and nitrogen losses within the site’s gas delivery and storage systems.
Solution: Swagelok fluid-system evaluation experts, employing ultrasonic leak-detection tools, conducted a comprehensive audit of the lab’s primary media lines.
Market: Power Generation
Challenge: A Swagelok Power Generation account needed to substantially improve profitability. Step one was to decrease power output costs.
Solution: Swagelok fluid-system evaluation experts were called in to thoroughly study and audit the customer’s compressed air and hydrogen lines.
Market: Oil & Gas
Challenge: A Swagelok Natural Gas Processing customer employed a costly, time-consuming, and sometimes inconsistent methodology to check for leakage during plant turnarounds.
Solution: Swagelok recommended a comprehensive Energy Emissions Evaluation, especially of the systems that were reassembled during the turnaround.
Market: OEM
Challenge: A global maker of Petrochemicals, producing over 4,000,000 tons of base materials at just one of its sites alone each year, faced numerous critical obstacles to remain safe, efficient, and profitable.
Solution: A team of trusted Swagelok engineering and account experts closely collaborated with our customer to make certain that the ideal Swagelok leak-tight, reliable, and compatible components were selected and significantly reduced universal fluid system complexity.
Market: Oil & Gas
Challenge: A major Pipeline account generated far too much scrap, with too much downtime, when making tight ¾” tube bends between two heavy-wall pipe connections – and, due to pressing deadlines, was unable to send operators to a Swagelok instructional class at our Pittsburgh Training Center.
Solution: Our Strategic Services Specialist and Trainer worked directly with the customer’s team to take precise measurements and create simple-to-follow bend sheets and how to confidently use a benchtop bender for large-diameter tube bends.
Market: Chemical
Challenge: A large Chemical company, employing dozens of specialty gases in its Research and Development functions, needed to determine exactly how those gases – running through more than 200 lines – were being absorbed into different automotive-industry materials.
Solution: Swagelok Source Inlets (SSI) and Gas Panels (SGP) were installed to secure reliable connection points between the high-pressure source gases and the balance of the remaining media in the overall gas distribution system.
Market: Chemical
Challenge: A Chemical customer needed to significantly upgrade the safety, productivity, and efficiency around its Nitrogen applications inside the company’s Research & Development lab.
Solution: Swagelok Pittsburgh | Tri-State Area collaborated extensively with our customer to help design and build 10 custom N2 instrumentation panels to required specifications.
Market: Oil & Gas
Challenge: If you use Glycol-based coolant to cool your natural gas engines, you could potentially be faced with fire hazards, unplanned station downtime, and/or excessive maintenance schedules
Solution: Innovative Coolant Plumbing System Upgrades
Market: Chemical & Refining
Challenge: Too Much Time, Money, and Risk when Filling Seal Pots
Solution: Swagelok Seal Pot Safe Fill Innovation
Challenge: Leaking, Inefficient, and Difficult-to-Service Seal Systems
Solution: Swagelok Lube System Power Pack
Market:Oil & Gas
Challenge: Oil & Gas customer needed to substantially improve the effectiveness and efficiency of its Pipeline Pump’s bearing lubrication and seal flush system.
Solution: Swagelok Pipeline Pump Seal Flush Support
Market: Chemical
Challenge: Kinking Hoses and Excessive Motor Noise
Solution: Swagelok Hose Advisory
Market: Power Generation
Challenge: Leaking Seal Supports and Extreme Pump Vibration
Solution: Swagelok Pre-Fabricated Installation Work Package
Market: Steel
Challenge: Inefficient Overall Procurement and Installation Processes
Solution: Swagelok Instrumentation Mounting Kits