New Brighton, September 27™, 2024 – Johnson Screens is thrilled to formally announce the unveiling of the new StaySafe™ Hold-Down Screens Family for petrochemical processing applications!
Hold-down screens are among the most common screening solutions used in fixed bed downflow reactors but have relied on designs that have experienced little change over the last several decades. There are two basic types of hold-down screens utilized in these reactors:
- Floating screens rest directly on the media but must be fully removed before replacing the media bed.
- Supported screens with ‘manways’ which rest on internal beams or a support ring within the vessel. The manway must be removed before the media can be extracted at the beginning of a ‘turnaround.’
Both designs require workers to enter the confined space of the vessel to perform the screen/manway removal. Even after a vessel is shut down and purged with inert gas, it remains a potentially pyrophoric and volatile environment for workers who must enter the vessels to disassemble and remove a hold-down screen or manway to evacuate the media. Entering the confined space of these vessels requires companies to comply with strict permitting, process and safety protocols established by several regulatory agencies including OSHA, API, ANSI/ASSP, and NFPA.
Compliance with these process and safety requirements for entering vessels and confined spaces mitigate risks to workers and companies, however, it is a time consuming and costly process. As such, the chemical processing and refining industry has begun to demand new screens that reduce risk to workers and improve efficiencies of the media removal process by reducing the need for confined space entry to remove media, and that is where the new Johnson Screens StaySafe™ Family of Hold-Down screens comes in!
Johnson Screens is proud to offer two new Hold-Down screening solutions as part of this product family:
- • The StaySafe™ Floating Safety Hold-Down Screen, featuring our “No-Entry” screen removal design for media access.
- • The StaySafe™ Screen with Safety Manway, featuring the “No-Entry” manway removal design for media access.
The StaySafe™ Floating Safety Hold-Down Screen consists of a series of interlocking panels that create a high-performance hold-down screen without requiring a nuts-and-bolts assembly. Users can safely disconnect and remove all screen components through the vessel manway, so no confined space entry is required to gain access to the media.
The StaySafe™ Screen with Safety Manway utilizes the standard nuts and bolts assembly of the main screen in combination with a unique latch-bar design which securely holds and seals the manway in place. Users can safely release the latch bar and remove the manway from the screen through the vessel manway, ensuring complete ‘No-Entry’ access to the media. Once the media is replaced, the manway can also be re-installed without entering the vessel.
The Johnson Screens StaySafe™ Screen Solutions Family combine the proven thermal and flow performance and durability of Vee-Wire™ with unique innovation for the refining industry that improves worker safety and shortens turnaround time. By eliminating the need for workers to enter a vessel to remove a hold-down screen or manway media bed, changes are safer and more efficient. Johnson Screens is excited to see the benefits these remarkable screening solutions will bring to the world of refining and petrochemical processing!
About Johnson Screens
Johnson Screens is the leading global provider of screening and auxiliary solutions. We support a wide range of industries, such as water wells, environmental, energy, chemicals, food and beverage, and mining, with our highly engineered and precisely fabricated products.
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Renato Barbedo – Global Marketing Director
renato.barbedo@johnsonscreens.com
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