At very short notice, our client engaged DIALOG Fitzroy to provide mechanical design & engineering, procure materials, fabricate, paint, insulate and install a Fuel Gas Waste Heat Boiler economiser assembly, inlet, outlet, vent and drain piping, to replace the existing economiser assembly. All of this was required to be achieved in just 14 weeks to meet the planned shutdown timeframe.
Apart from very tight delivery timeline, one of the primary challenges on this project was ensuring the new economiser would fit in the space after the existing economiser was removed. This was due to the fact that existing economiser was operating at 300°C, which had caused its outside body and flange faces to warp during operation, hence deviating from its cold position dimensions. The fabrication/design drawings of the existing economiser assembly had contradictory information and were not “as-built” at the time of the existing economiser installation. Also, there wasn’t any planned shutdown of this equipment during the first few weeks of our 14weeks delivery time, which would have allowed us to confirm the economiser assembly cold position dimensions.
DIALOG Fitzroy Solution
At DIALOG Fitzroy we like to think outside the box and come up with ways to get things done for our clients. To mitigate the risk of the unit not fitting accurately, we carried out 3D laser scanning of the assembly, measured multiple times at site, did Finite Element (FEA) and Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) analysis to determine what the dimensions would be when the economiser assembly is in its cold position. All this effort proved worthwhile with the smooth installation of the new economiser assembly during the shutdown with no alterations or reworks.
