Seika Engineering (President: Katsuji Fukutani) has contrived to improve efficiency for inspections by means of removing weld lines of the heat transfer pipe inside the hot-water tank and has developed a new type of hot-water LNG vaporizer which reduces cracking risks of the welded parts on the pipe. The company having an experience of panel exhibition at the City-gas Symposium Annex which was held in October 2016, has already received several enquiries for offer and is going to make delivery of the first product early this year. 　

The LNG vaporizer in general is used to evaporate LNG which is stored in a liquid form, and is installed attaching to cryogenic equipment in a satellite base. Like the one for air separation gases, the vaporizer is roughly divided in two types for air warming and hot-water systems. The hot-water type has a structure to vaporize by heat exchange with hot water while LNG is put through the coil-shaped heat transfer pipe attached in the hot-water tank.

As the heat transfer pipe is assembled by welding, it is mandatory to take out the pipe from the hot-water tank and make an inspection to measure the thickness and check the airtightness every three years. Now that the removal and reinstallation of the heat transfer pipe requires so large-scaled work using heavy machinery like a crane, there has been a growing demand for changing into a weld line-free heat transfer pipe to simplify the inspection processes. In 2013, some other company went ahead to develop a vaporizer positioning its weld part outside the hot-water tank.

With such background, Seika Engineering also started to develop a vaporizer of new type. Eliminating weld seams from the heat transfer pipes, Seika Engineering arranged straight pipes upright instead of the coil form and attained space-saving by means of a double-tube structure making hot water flow outside. Each of the double pipes has a vaporizing capacity of 100kg/h and a combination of the maximum six pipes is available per unit. Furthermore, the space for installation has been saved to one third of the conventional vaporizer by means of packaging the valve skid, pipe and manometer into one unit.

Manabu Otsuji director in charge of engineering said, “In addition to the advantage of reduced burden at the time of inspection, the vaporizer has a good structure to ease removal depending on use conditions thanks to the packaged unit and the shortened period of construction with less portion of on-site piping works.” The company is planning to expand the sales of LNG vaporizers and satellite facilities to users in wider fields with a new lineup adding the new vaporizer to the existing products.