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Pigging System Design

Pigging systems are installed in a variety of factories in different industries.
Their applications at oil refineries, petrochemical factories, oil terminals and port facilities include:

・ Purging the pipelines on the sea berth in order to remove any remaining oils in the pipe.
・ Transferring oil such as bunker-C fuel oil, whose viscosity gets higher when cooled, to tanks while it is still at high temperature, so that energy cost to heat the pipes can be reduced
・ Preventing contamination of oil when the pipes are used to transfer more than one kind of oils
・ Calculating the volumetric flow rate within the pipeline by measuring the time and the distance the pig moves, and
・ Increasing the recovery percentage of quality, expensive liquids from pipeline.

Food processing factories utilize pigging systems for:

・ Minimizing cross contamination between product batches in case multiple sort of products are manufactured using a single production line.
・ Improving efficiency of clean-in-place (CIP) process,
・ Reducing flushing water and waste water for the CIP process, and
・ Improving product recovery rate.

We start designing pigging systems by discussing how the cleanings should be done and how plants would work with the customers. The basic design process includes:

・ Drawing a system flow chart to show how the pigs move.
・ Completing an operation diagram to specify how the liquids would flow with the pigs moving and whether each of the valves is open or closed at that moment.
・ Selecting most suitable sort of pigs according to the temperature of the liquid concerned and how the pigs should run.
・ Selecting most suitable pig detectors,
・ Designing pig launchers and receivers, and
・ Specifying information including the valve status requirement (open/close) and signals (ON/OFF) from pig detectors, required for designing DSC and PLC.

The pigs used for these systems are

・ SUD pigs,
・ HYPER pigs
・ SPHEREs

The material of the pigs used in these systems can vary from polyurethane to other material such as nitrile, neoprene, Viton and EPDM. The pigs for food application fully conform to the codes and standards of the Japanese Food Sanitation Act and the regulations of Ministry of Health and welfare, Notification No, 370. The pigs used are selected according to how the systems shall be operated and the temperature of the liquid concerned.

Another component of the pigging system is the pig detector, that will

・ Detect passage of pigs on the line,
・ Confirm the launch of the pigs from the pig launchers.
・ Confirm the arrival of the pigs to the receiver
・ Autonomous operation of the lines by relaying.

The pig detectors used in the system will be determined by the pigs and the product lines, from those manufactured by our suppliers Maloney Inc, Apache, Inline and GD Engineering.

We also sell closures that help to retrieve pigs from the launcher/receiver.
Our pig system designs solution will not only help improving the quality of your products but also ensure the safe operation.