Let’s just say that things don’t always work out as planned. In plant design, this can lead to odd piping offsets and valves in places that are inaccessible or in unsafe operating locations. Luckily, our design team and manufacturing division has the experience and capabilities to help rectify some of those oddities.

Problem

In the current piping layout, there were 16” and 18” gate valves that were hard to access. An operator had to bend down and over through a railing to turn a handwheel, not a safe position for someone to be in, especially on a catwalk.

Solution

A gate valve extension was designed that would go through the current railing, making it safer and easier to operate. A traditional extension would couple to the valve stem, but to keep things simple and cost-effective, our product engineer designed the extension to come off the existing handwheels. The added benefit of the design was the ease of installation.