Schoolhill Engineering find Intervention Tooling Solution

Schoolhill Hydraulic Engineering, the leading Aberdeen based providers of design, manufacture and testing services for hydraulic powered equipment, has developed special tooling for intervention solution for the servicing of large gate valves.

The company which specialises in supply to the Offshore Oil and Gas industry produced the innovative design as part of a design and manufacture project for a major subsea valve specialist.

Managing Director Ronald Whyte commented:

‘At Schoolhill Engineering we have a culture of thinking and working as a team. This extends to our customers, and we are delighted to have been able to work with a prestigious valve manufacturer to produce an excellent solution to this intervention servicing conundrum.’

In order to carry out the maintenance on the large 16˝HSR gate valve a suite of 3 tools are required to allow valve seats to be replaced in situ. By servicing the valve without the need to remove it from the system, the new tooling solution allowed for quicker service, reducing the need for costly shut off of integral valves.

The tools were developed by Schoolhill’s team of skilled engineers and consist of a spring compression tool, a gate removal tool and a seat change-out tool. They are mechanical hydraulic in operation and bolt on to the top of the valve body.

Mr Whyte added: ‘Space constraints inside the valve body made this quite an engineering challenge, in particular for the seat removal tool, which locks on to the existing seats and hydraulically pulls them out of their pockets. It was therefore, very satisfying to reach such an effective solution.’

This is the 3rd design and manufacture project for the same customer and it is our understanding that these tools are proving to be very successful.

Schoolhill Engineering
Tel: 01224 871086
Email: hydraulics@schoolhillengineering.com
www.schoolhillengineering.com

Published: 19th September 2014