Challenge

Our customer is a leading transportation company specializing in the transport of liquid asphalt. A customer’s service team at one of the terminals were facing problems with finding a liquid asphalt hose solution for loading and unloading of rail tankers to a pipeline. As liquid asphalt must be unloaded at high temperature, our customer highlighted enhanced working conditions. The application was of a heavy duty type but still operated by a single worker.

Solution

A loading arm was not an issue so we decided to use a flexible metal hose. Only a few flexible metal tubes are suitable for such demanding applications so the choice was obvious – stainless steel hose (321 SS) in stainless steel braid (304 SS) with the bending radius of 563 mm in dynamic conditions. This stainless steel hose handles the transfer of petroleum-based products and can be used at working temperature as high as 800°C so it was perfect to transfer asphalt at 180°C. Of course any flexible metal hose used in such demanding application must meet the requirements of relevant quality standards – our tube is compliant with ISO 10380 standard so withstands cyclic bending (50 000 cycles). An ideal hose solution.

However, it is not only a metal hose that counts but also its high-quality industrial fittings. The hose was assembled with a fixed stainless steel flange DN100 PN10 (304 SS) at one end. The other end was equipped with 4” Camlock coupler, made of 316L stainless steel.

Usually when asphalt transfer is over, there is some stubborn residue left in the hose. To facilitate smooth operation and maintenance we decided to weld an L-shaped stainless steel pipe to the Camlock coupling. The pipe was designed to facilitate cleaning with compressed air. It was assembled with a ball valve – female thread ¾” (316 SS) equipped with a claw coupling.

Result

The delivered solution was a perfect match for such harsh conditions. With this stainless steel metal hose, the customer could easily handle loading and unloading of asphalt. Even though the hose assembly was made of stainless steel, it was not that heavy and yet very flexible. At this point we advised our customer that liquid asphalt can also be transferred by jacketed metal hoses or rubber hoses. Once again our team proactively responded to the customer’s needs!

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