CASE STUDY |
High Pressure CO2 Mussel Oil Extraction Vessels 

Allied Industrial Engineering (AIE) are a heavy mechanical engineering service company specialising in component manufacturing, maintenance and re-engineering services including machining, balancing, fabrication, fitting, design, drafting, and project management.

THE CHALLENGE

AIE was approached to design and build three high pressure CO2 vessels by Energy Extracts Ltd (EEx): the SCC02 plant OEM, design + build company. The vessels are to be used in a supercritical CO2 (400 bar plant design) mussel oil extraction plant.

AIE had the capability to build the vessels but required technical support in designing the vessels as per industry standards. The vessels were required to be third party certified. All three vessels were different designs and had complex design features, such as quick actuating closure, threaded flanges, heating coils, external cooling jackets, and CIP requirements.

THE SOLUTION

Caliber provided complete technical and drafting support for the project. The vessels were designed and detailed to meet the client’s and pressure vessel code requirements. AIE built and tested the vessels with minimum burden on their internal drafting resources. EEx was very happy with the support received throughout the complete design cycle. Some specifics about the project:

• AIE involved Caliber Design right from the proposal stage of the project.
• Design engineer interacted with the AIE and EEx to establish the design requirements like cycles of operation, pressures etc based on process requirements. Interfaces with other plant equipment were also established with progressive interaction over the design cycle.
• In order to embrace the working culture and drawing standards of AIE, Caliber’s engineer was sent to work onsite at their remotely located manufacturing plant at Kawerau for a week.
• Working collaboratively with AIE engineers and EEx, Caliber Design supported to provide complete design, calculations, and manufacturing drawings for the three vessels. FE analysis was also performed as part of the design verification for quick actuating closure.
• Caliber Design appointed and got the design verified by a Certifying Engineer to get PS1 certificate. Caliber also provided the technical information as required for SGS (third party) to certify the hydrotest of the vessels.
• Caliber was in constant touch with AIE to provide technical support during manufacturing and capture design modifications as required per manufacturing / sourcing requirements.