Victorian Desalination Project Orders 10,000 metres of MEI (Chibro) SS316 Press Fit Piping System

Oct. 17, 2011 - PRLog -- The plant is designed to deliver up to 150 billion litres (150GL) of drinking water per year and can be expanded, if required, to 200 billion litres (200GL) per year. The desalination plant is located near Wonthaggi, Victoria, approximately 135km south east of Melbourne. http://www.water.vic.gov.au/programs/desalination/background/research

The desalination plant requires many kilometres of piping for the processing of seawater to drinking water. This piping comprises of a range of seawater, potable water, cooling water, compressed air and other water processing requirements. For the stainless steel piping requirements, the options were to use the traditional welded or the No Weld, SS316 Press Fit Piping system. The Press Fit piping system offered the following benefits:
•   Reduced a significant number of welded flanges and assembly thereof.
•   Reduced the weight of pipework to be handled, including flanged ends.
•   Provided speed of install and hence reduction of man hours for the assembly / installation of pipework.
•   The onsite assembly and install of pipe work would be done with no “hot work”.
•   Allowed the pipework to be done in-situ, removing the need of having pipework done off site. Any required changes to the original design piping layout, could easily be done on site  with the Press Fit system.
•   Significantly reduced the need to  have  stainless pipe welders on site waiting to do modifications on an as-required basis.

The use of the MEI (Chibro) press fit piping system was a first for many of the crew with the installation progressing smoothly on site. The adoption of Press Fit piping has spread after an initial installation for cooling water line in 50nb. Now, other piping systems that were nominated in other materials, have been upgraded to MEI’s SS316 Press Fit Piping system where pipe sizes range from 15nb to 100nb. MEI’s Press Fit pipe, fittings and tooling were delivered on time as promised.

More information on the MEI (Chibro) SS316 No Weld Press Fit piping system can be found at http://www.stainlesssteelpipefittings.com.au