Tips To Use Steel Pipe Flange For The First Time
A pipe flange is one of the mechanical devices that help serve the purpose of joining pipes together. It can come in the form of a welding neck where it is threaded or welded to the flange collar where it screws to the flange. Other methods include the use of lap joints. It helps to make connections with the use of a stub end or a slip-on or socket weld.
Here are few tips for using steel pipe flange for the first time:
1. High-pressure work needs socket weld flanges
If the high-pressure pipework is below 2 inches (DN50), socket weld flanges are preferable. You can do it as you fillet the welded pipe to the socket weld flange hub. It is essential to have a good welding experience for connection as a radiographic examination on the fillet weld is not easy to execute.
2. Low-pressure services require slip-on flanges
Slip-on flanges are the preference among the users as they are low cost, easy to use and even take less time during the installation process. The purpose is during the non-critical low-pressure services like firewater, cooling water, or other non-challenging pipework that own to their strength being 1/3 lower than the weld neck flange. The pipe gets welded to the flange hub and bore.
3. Lap joints are good for high-cost material pipelines
The connections with lap joint flanges work well for pipelines with high-cost materials like stainless steel and nickel alloys as it hugely reduces the total cost or all the flanges connection it needs.
A lap joint connection is formed by combining the stub end that gets welded onto the pipe and the backing flange or lapped flange. You can also use a stainless steel stub end combination with a carbon steel lap joint flange so that you can acquire a good welded connection at a low cost.
4. Connection of weld neck flanges to the butt welded pipe
The tapered hub in the weld neck flanges with an end which is the butt weld, and you can connect it with a butt weld pipe. You can quickly examine the quality of the weld with ultrasound, radiography or you can also do it visually.
5. A skilled professional is always good
If you want the execution of pipe flange joints to go well, let a skilled professional do the job. Trained personnel must be the ones to execute flange joints to prevent any dangerous leakage from happening in the pipeline. A properly trained engineer must be the one to execute the flanged joints if you are using steel pipe for the first time.
Conclusion
The above tips will help you to understand better about the steel pipelines. If you have any queries about steel pipe flanges, do let us know in the comment section.
