Celebrating 60 years in temperature innovations
05 November 2014
Okazaki Manufacturing Company (OMC) was founded in Kobo Japan in 1954 and over the last 60 years has grown into a multinational manufacturer of temperature related products, the latest facility being Established in 2012, the 13,120 sq m Main Manufacturing Factory is the flagship of its sensor production and offers manufacturing Innovations such as Laser and Robotic welding and the very latest machining and deep hole drilling centers.
Today, OMC designs and manufactures a wide range of reliable, high quality, high accuracy temperature measurement products. With a turnover in excess of 110 million USD, OMC is one of the largest manufacturers of mineral insulated (MI) thermocouple and RTD cable, which is the first building block of industrial temperature sensors. OMC operates from a series of specialist sales support offices worldwide, backed up by a team of local representative companies all with specialist instrumentation departments. OMC has manufacturing sites in Japan, USA and Taiwan.
Innovation has always been OMC’s strength and this can been seen with products for the Oil & Gas Industry, examples are shown here.
VortexWell
The VortexWell Thermowell offers a solution when a standard thermowell profile fails the industry standard ASME PTC 19.3 TW 2010. A unique design of thermowell that incorporates a helical strake design, rather like on a car aerial or cooling tower fins.”
After extensive R&D using the latest CFD software, as well as independent evaluation, OMC was able to visualise and accurately compare the flow behaviour of the VortexWell helical strake design with a standard tapered thermowell.
In the analyses, the standard tapered thermowell showed classic shedding behaviour as expected, whereas the VortexWell demonstrated no signs of regular flow behaviour. The VortexWell helical strake design disturbed the flow sufficiently to interrupt the regular formation of vortices. Whilst a small vortex was observed in the wake of the VortexWell this was a localised stagnation point and didn’t shed.
However, the most significant comparison made was with regard to the pressure fields. For the standard tapered well design, an oscillating pressure field was observed around the structure. The VortexWell displayed a constant and stable pressure field, presenting no dynamic variations. As this pressure is the source of vortex-induced vibrations, it can be assumed that the VortexWell would experience a significant improvement in practise compared to the standard thermowell design.
FANTIP
The FANTIP skin thermocouple is used in the measurement of the tube metal temperature (TMT) within process fired heaters and furnaces
The FanTip has a unique fan-shaped head that enables it to be easily welded to any type of process heater tube. This means the user gets a more accurate temperature measurement on the surface of the tube. Construction and tip profile accuracy is now between +4 and +6 degrees Centigrade of the true tube temperature.”
Currently used by BP, Esso, Exxon Mobil and STATOIL, the Fan Tip thermocouple is ideal for any process burning or heating applications, including hazardous area oil and gas, chemical and petrochemical installations. The Fan Tip is suitable for gas-fired, light fuel oil and heavy fuel oil heaters. The sheath can be supplied in either 316 stainless steel for gas-fired heaters, Hastelloy-X for light fuel oil, or dual sheath HR-160 version for arduous, heavy fuel oil applications.
The design of the FanTip thermocouple is such that it can be used in all process heater applications. The length of the sheath can be increased by up to 30 metres. The sheath can be bent in a cold state to meet any fixture and exit point on the heater tube.
Okazaki EPC assistance case study
OMC through its global proactive sales activities approached an EPC company in Houston and carried out a lunch and learn on thermowell design with compliance with ASME PTC 19.3 TW 2010 and how to engineer thermowell design upon failure of this calculation process.
Several weeks after the Lunch and learn our Houston sales office was approached by an instrument engineer from EPC working on an Ethylene oxide project relating to a new build in Texas. The project was well into build and also ready for commission but was now running behind due to delay in the specification and supply of 5 relatively inexpensive temperature assemblies.
A purchase order had been placed well in advance for the supply of over 180 Temperature assemblies with a regular supplier to the EPC and a Approved listed vendor to the end user (not OMC) but at the eleventh hour there was still no solution offered by this supplier to engineer the 5 themowells which had failed the calculation while maintaining an OD to fit into the connection nozzle and immersion length to insure the thermocouple tip was in the process pipe.
After our Lunch and learn we were approached to offer a solution and with a few hours OMC had reviewed the process data and submitted a detailed quotation and technical proposal with GA drawings and calculations based on our VortexWell design.
The Items were ordered and delivery time frame of 4 weeks as requested. The EPC have since commented that the engineer had spent over 60 man hours trying to find a solution before he contacted OMC. His only comments were why we had not visited him sooner and the comments from the client engineer was why was OMC not used at the beginning.
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