Project Spotlight – Railcar Ammonia Loading
S&S Technical was approached to help develop a project that included the need for a new (4) four railcar loading rack, loading arms, and custody transfer meter skids for top loading of the cars. As part of the development of the skid systems, State ammonia rules & regulations had to be taken into consideration as part of the storing and handling of the product as well as NFPA 77 guidelines. For this particular project seamless pipe was selected, welded by welders qualified to ASME Section IX and tested per ASME B31.3. The ammonia railcar loading package was designed for a capacity of 50.0 ton/hr per load spot.
The loading skids were integrated into the railcar loading rack with gangways/safety cages and Emco Wheaton loading arms.
Skid systems include 300# class piping, Flo-Tite manual inlet/outlet ball valves, Rosemount pressure & temperature transmitters, RTD/Thermowells, Fisher actuated globe valves, actuated butterfly valves, E&H Promass coriolis meters, vapor return header, stainless junction boxes and ground verification units, stainless tags, excess flow valves, coated and tested per the end users specifications. The controls included provisions for ready to load, loading in progress, loading interruption, local start load and emergency stop. The Emco Wheaton loading arms included ESD’s for emergency shutdown and stingers for threading into the railcar 2” liquid and vapor connections on top of the car. This Emco Wheaton arm design incorporates all liquid and vapor lines into one arm, eliminating the need for a typical 2nd arm for vapor recovery. It makes for a cleaner set up that is more operator friendly and frees up space on the load rack.
The controls are all accessible from the upper level load rack walkway by each rail load spot. The operator can gain access to the top of the car, position the loading arms and make the liquid and vapor line connections and then use the skid controls at each spot to send a pump start permissive. The custody transfer meter will capture the number of pounds loaded and send the transaction information to a PLC/terminal automation package. Transaction data can be customized to fit a sites specific needs.
S&S Technical has provided multiple customized skid packages for compression, pumping, and metering of liquids like refined fuels, crude oil, renewable feedstocks, propane, butane, propylene, HCL, bio-fuels, cyanide, and naphtha. Need help with proven solutions that work, come take advantage of the S&S teams industry knowledge and utilize the all in house, design, fabrication, automation services for your next project.