Parker Instrumentation has unveiled a comprehensive range of high-integrity manifolds, designed to meet the growing demand for new levels of safety and performance for instrumentation systems used in oil, gas, chemical and other process plants. The range integrates product portfolios and intellectual property from Parker and leading manifold designer Ives Valves, acquired by Parker in 2001, and reflects a multi-million euro investment in machine tools and product development.
The new manifold range offers solutions for every major industrial process instrumentation application. It incorporates unique options, purpose-engineered to help engineers meet the demand for ever-higher integrity instrumentation systems. Key among these options are the ability to dramatically reduce the number of potential leak paths, and eliminate any need for sealants when making connections.
At the core of the new range are around 50 types of manifold, including a variety of 2-, 3- and 5-valve manifolds for pressure and flow transmitters, double-block-and-bleed assemblies and monoflanges, manifolds for Rosemount’s 3051 ‘coplanar’ transmitters, miniaturised manifolds, distribution manifolds – plus discrete valves and accessories. Numerous application-specific manifold designs are also available for major oil and gas companies and instrument OEMs. The all-important high-integrity options include two unique developments for advancing manifold safety and reliability. The first is an ability to specify manifolds with integral pre-assembled connections for compression tube fittings. Known as PTFree Connect, this innovation eliminates taper thread interconnections, and with it any need for PTFE tape or anaerobic sealant – a major cause of problems in the field. The second is manifold designs with integral weld-necked flanges. This allows double-block-and-bleed valve arrangements to be fabricated in a single piece, reducing the number of connection interfaces – each one a potential leak path – from as many as 10 in traditional double-block-and-bleed implementations, to just one. The technology additionally reduces the size and weight of the assemblies by 75% or more, providing further important benefits for application areas such as offshore platforms.
