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Up Topic Welding Industry / General Welding Discussion / Frozen water left in pipes after hydro test. Busted
- - By 63 Max (***) Date 01-20-2009 01:27
The guys that do our hydro tests on the compression stations we are building here in VA left the pipes full of water and they froze and busted. The oldest one that is in charge of doing them tried to blame it on the newer guy saying he didn't drain the water after the test. Either way now we have to replace 190' of 8" discharge and 24" suction 375 wall piping. We cut it apart today to remove it out of the ditch and the ice was solid even in the 24", never thought I would see that. That's going to cost about $200,000 to replace.  Has anyone ever seen that before? There wasn't any breaks in the 24" but the company cant take any chances of it being weakened. I didn't have my camera with me today or I would of gotten pic's. I'll take some tomorrow and post them.
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Parent - - By ZCat (***) Date 01-20-2009 01:50
I saw a run of 24" stainless get sucked in flat like a pancake when they opened a valve and let all the water run down the rest of the line that was going down the side of a mountain. They forgot to open the bleed on top and the water sucked a vacuum and flattened the pipe. :)
Parent - - By up-ten (***) Date 01-20-2009 02:03
Saw the walls of an oil storage tank collapse because "someone" forgot to open the vent after draining down. And the tank had just been built.
Parent - - By DaveBoyer (*****) Date 01-20-2009 02:24
Always keep an eye on people named "They" and "Someone". :-)
Parent - - By up-ten (***) Date 01-20-2009 03:36
"Roger" that!
Parent - - By OBrien (***) Date 01-20-2009 03:42
Don't forget "Whats his name"   He tends to screw alot of stuff everywhere I go.
Parent - - By 803056 (*****) Date 01-20-2009 08:03
"I don't know" is right behind him!

Al
Parent - By Joseph P. Kane (****) Date 01-20-2009 14:23
Someone should come with a "Who's on first" gag out of this string.  Mr. Norris???
Parent - By swsweld (****) Date 01-23-2009 05:49
I have children that refer to a sibling named "Not Me" I have never seen this child but I know she exist. A very active and elusive child.
Parent - By PipeIt (**) Date 01-20-2009 15:44
I like that one, a keeper phrase for sure!
Parent - By Kix (****) Date 01-20-2009 14:25
They shut down the cooling water on a blast furnace for a steel mill so they could change out some coolers. That night a big winter storm hit and temps droped big time.  Busted pipes and split some big valves wide open.  Needless to say we got some more work out of that little predicament.  Can you say 7 12's baby, but it didn't take us but about a week to fix. lol :-(
Parent - - By Metarinka (****) Date 01-20-2009 22:49
coefficient of thermal expansion.
Bottom line is you can't beat physics.
The incredible part is that water is pretty much the only material that is known to expand in volume when going to a solid state.  name any other material and they all get denser in the solid state.

think about that for a minute
Parent - By uphill (***) Date 01-21-2009 00:19
I havent ever had a drink that overfilled itself when the ice melted. Is liquid nitrogen still a gas?
Sorry that was the short bus answer.
Parent - - By DaveBoyer (*****) Date 01-21-2009 01:02
There is a name for that property of water, but I don't remember it. Water is most dense at 4 degrees centigrade, the expansion actually begins before the transformation to a solid.
Parent - - By Kix (****) Date 01-21-2009 17:45
Yup, fill a glass of water up half way and mark it.  Put it in the freezer and you can watch it rise above the line while freezing.  Pretty crazy stuff!
Parent - - By Cactusthewelder (*****) Date 01-24-2009 02:53
I tried that, But I had a very hard time seeing through the freezer door
Parent - By Kix (****) Date 01-24-2009 22:53
Ok smart guy. ;-)  You have to mark it first then check on it a few times.  It's not gonna thaw out instantly when you open the door to check on it.
Parent - - By G.S.Crisi (****) Date 01-21-2009 15:03
Metarinka,
that's why ice floats on water.
Giovanni S. Crisi
Parent - By Metarinka (****) Date 01-22-2009 02:38
this is very true proffessor and it's what protects our liquid oceans from totally freezing over. Unlike the froozen methan oceans found on moons of other planets.

from a chemistry standpoint water has many properties that deviate from what is expected. Similar to how it expands upon freezing, is a dense liquid, yet very light gas etc etc

http://www.lsbu.ac.uk/water/anmlies.html
Parent - - By up-ten (***) Date 01-21-2009 18:47
Uhh,if I'm understanding this correctly and can compare it to the part of my body that also expands in volume when going to a solid state,know what I'm asking?
Parent - - By scrappywelds (***) Date 01-22-2009 00:38
I have seen pipe spilt on two seperate jobs. Hydro in the winter below freezing temps. without heat trace first is stupid. the cold metal will freeze atleast a thin layer of ice making the test inaccurate. Olny good part is the ot it takes to replace the pipe.
Parent - By IRWelder (*) Date 01-24-2009 01:34
Hi all,
Up here in the great white north, (Alberta, Canada)  hydrotesting is done every day in the freezing temps. Just did one today -40 degrees celsius. Methanol - water mix, used all the time for hydro in the winter.
Parent - - By G.S.Crisi (****) Date 01-22-2009 19:01
Back in my days of erector engineer I was in charge of the construction of a natural gas compressing station in the south of Argentina.
When all of the piping systems were erected and ready for hydro testing, with the client's approval we decided to run two separate tests, one after the other: one for the low pressure piping (working pressure 600 psig) and another one for the high pressure piping (working pressure 900 psig).
It took a whole cold winter day to fill and vent completely the piping and have them ready for testing. It was 6 pm, we were tired and decided to run the tests the next day. However, the piping was mostly outdoor and the night temperature was expected to go down to minus 10 Celsius (you translate into Farenheit).
I had foreseen that, so previously I had bought plenty pieces of lumber, those used on home fireplaces. We put groups of 4-5 lumber pieces under the pipes (gas compressing stations' piping use to be at a low height), at a distance of about 10 feet from each other, and lighted them up. The night watchman was given the task of taking care that the fires didn't quench, feeding them with extra lumber pieces if necessary. As expected, the night temperature went down to minus 9 Celsius, but, needless to say, the water into the piping didn't freeze.
Next day we ran the two hydro tests, first the low pressure one and then the high pressure. Not even one leak was detected.
Giovanni S. Crisi
Sao Paulo - Brazil
Parent - By thomasyyz (**) Date 01-22-2009 20:26
ten litres of water makes eleven of ice, good foresight.
Parent - By 63 Max (***) Date 01-23-2009 01:45 Edited 01-23-2009 02:59
Added some pic's of the piping that froze in 1st post
Up Topic Welding Industry / General Welding Discussion / Frozen water left in pipes after hydro test. Busted

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