Steam Blowing – Staging
Professionally Engineered Steam Blow Industrial Services
From new construction to MRO events, steam blowing plays an essential role in protecting the longevity of your facility’s steam systems and other critical equipment. Since our founding, B&W Energy Services has engineered and executed more than 170 steam blow projects in more than 20 countries for clients like Shell, ExxonMobil, Dow, Fluor, Zachry and more.
Whether you’re a combined-cycle power plant, LNG terminal, refinery, chemical plant or university, our team is committed to delivering expert engineering and thorough cleans for your facility’s systems.
What Are Steam Blowing Services?
Steam blowing services use the flow of low-pressure, high-velocity steam to expand and contract the walls of piping systems. This process removes mill scale, weld slag, construction debris and other impurities from facilities’ piping systems prior to startup or during maintenance cleaning. Steam blows can also be combined with AquaLazing services to enhance the cleaning ability of steam blowing and shorten the duration of the steam blowing process.
B&W performs three main kinds of steam blowing services:
Continuous Steam Blowing
- The industry’s most common steam blow system method
- Shortest overall steam blow duration
- Constant disturbance factor
- Continuous high velocities throughout your facility’s piping systems
- Low reaction forces
- Minimal support or restraint requirements
Exhaustive Steam Blowing
- Longest overall steam blow duration
- Features a cyclical depressurization of your facility’s piping systems
- Intermittent disturbance factor
- High reaction forces
- Maximum support or restraint requirements
Hybrid Steam Blowing
- Mix of steady-state and cyclical conditions
- Features medium to long overall steam blow duration
- Intermittent disturbance factor
- Reaction forces vary
- Maximum support or restraint requirements
The B&W Steam Blow Services Difference
- We have one of the largest inventories of wet and dry steam silencers in the industry, allowing us to perform steam blows on facilities of all sizes, including some of the largest projects in the world
- Our dry steam silencers are designed to vent up to 900,000 lb/hr of steam while maintaining a 85 dB (or less) noise rating at 50 feet
- Our expert engineers design our own pneumatic high-strength target inserters to significantly reduce downtime during the steam blowing process
- All of our temporary pipe spools are fabricated to ASME standards and our prefabricated temporary vent piping systems are built to ASME B31.3 code
- Our team conducts 100% flow modeling and analysis of your facility’s steam system
- We minimize water usage by performing Zero Liquid Discharge steam blowing
How B&W Performs Steam Blows
Steam blowing services are a bit more complex than simply blowing steam. B&W creates and delivers customized steam blowing programs through our meticulous five-step process.
1. Assess
2. Model
3. Mobilize
4. Execute
5. Repeat
For engineering and execution that can meet even the most strict steam blow criteria, reach out to our team to see how B&W can deliver for both your pre-commissioning and maintenance cleaning needs.
