FLANGE BOLT SPEED LOADER

DESCRIPTION

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The bolts required for securing flanged joints on large diameter pipelines are correspondingly large and heavy. Each bolt weighing up to 70kg, must be manually inserted into the flange bolt holes after the flanges are lined up. Up to 44 bolts may be required for a 48” diameter flange, meaning a diver may be handling up to 3 tonnes of bolts. This is a slow and labour intensive operation, as care has to be taken to ensure the thread on the bolts is not damaged during installation.

 

In order to speed up the operation and reduce diver fatigue, SERS Group has designed a special tool as a Speed Loader. This allows the bolts to be preloaded into a template on deck topside where the bolts can be more easily handled by the deck crew. Once the speed loader is fully loaded, it can be deployed to the subsurface worksite and installed around the pipe adjacent to the pair of flanges. The tool then is hydraulically pulled into place automatically inserting all the bolts into the flange holes. This significantly reduces diver workload and increases productivity, as well as increasing safety as the amount of manual handling of large, heavy sharp bolts is minimised.