The pipe phosphate design above is the culmination of 3 months of very carefully thought out work, undertaken during my summer internship with Vallourec Tube-Alloy in Houma Louisiana. Construction of the device has already begun, and for a fraction of the cost of similar devices.
To make this come to life, I designed the parts in 3D, and generated nested waterjet cut files. A precise bill of materials, and an assembly/welding guide was created to allow for the team to manufacture it to specification.
The device allows the technician to chemically phosphate the ends of pipes without lifting them into the air for tank dipping. Phosphating, commercially known as Parkerizing, is a process that produces a corrosion resistant coating on the surface of the part via chemical reaction with the part. The process is not compatible with non-ferrous metals like aluminum, brass, copper, or steels with lots of nickel. 316 Stainless Steel is a great material choice for this reason, as it contains around 10-14% nickel. Every single part of the device was created with 316 Stainless Steel for corrosion resistance.
To use the device, the pipe is simply slid into the frontal opening until it meets the interchangeable neoprene rubber gasket and forms a seal with it. The canister is then pumped through with the 180F phosphating solution, which is primarily comprised of phosphoric acid, with dissolved phosphates mixed in. The solution enters the canister through both a large bore input, and a center jet to dislodge air bubbles. Once the fluid fills the canister, it begins to overflow out of the rear overflow tube, creating a submerged zone of circulation inside the canister, thus phosphating the pipe.
The canister pictured is not the only one that was designed. Four in total were designed using parametric modeling, and Python scripting to generate the required model parameters. Each canister features a locking slot attachment method for securing to the custom steel base that sits atop the phosphate tank. The canisters are interchangeable
Since the gaskets are also interchangeable to support different pipe sizes for each canister, a system of gasket shapes had to be created for rapid and convenient swapping. An excerpt of the gasket layout is pictured to the right. Each gasket is waterjet cut, featuring a hole-punch ID tag, and locating holes for mounting to the canister body.
