Expansion joint on Sulphure line

Hi,
I'm envolved with a fully jacketed liquid sulphure system. It's a header collecting liquid sulphure from 5 branches and sending them to a sump.

Due to cross connections rigidity and bad system design, I need to use expansion joints to handle the system load and stress.

1-I'm not sure if I can use expansion joints for such a service as it solidifies in case of temprature deviatons causing the line blockage.

2-Because the line shall be fully jacketed, I don't know which practice works best to prevent heat loss from EX joint: Steam/electrcal tracing, using two welding EX joints inside eachother or if there is any special two wall EX joint.
Please advise me and let me know if you can recommend any vendor.

Best

These 5 sulphur (sulfur) lines should run from there source to the sump as individual lines. Any attempt to join then into a common system is only asking for trouble. One of the branches will get plugged and it will need to be shut down, dissembled and rodded (or drilled) out.
You should use jacketed piping with steam in the jacket as the first choice. The alternate would be steam traced single pipe. The individual lines should have flanged elbows for disassemble when there is a plugging of a line.

The bottom line DON'T join the lines together!

This will also eliminate the thought of using expansion joints in sulfur lines. Bad idea.

Normal expansion joint is not recommended for sulphur line. We used sleeve type expasion joints on sulphur lines.

You should never use a bellows type expansion joint in the core pipe of a jacketed pipe system. Use an EXJ only in the jacket if you have to. There have been previous posts on this subject, which you can find with the 'Search' facility.

Dear SSW,
Would you please send me more details regarding this sleeve typw EXJ? As far as I found in vendors, the sleeve type hase the same shortcomming like normal ones; the liquid sulphure can find its way to back of the sleeve and in case of line block, there is a big trouble to clean the EXJ.

Best
Arman

You should consider induction heating on the molten sulfur line. It's a lot cheaper than a full jacket. Some vendors also provide full contact steam tracing with, essentially, channels with a cover seal plate rolled to match the pipe OD. These can be used singly or multiply - the advantage is that it requires two failures in order for steam and smlten sulfur to come in contact.

Both these systems are relatively new technology, but have some service time. Also, they provide very little stiffness above that of the core line, so your piping system can be more flexible.

Cleaning a sleeve-type expansion joint is not terrible, install it near a tee where the flow turns and goes out the branch, and put a blind flange on the other end of the tee. Then you can remove the blind flange and rod out the expansion joint.

You can check the website of Adsco.

http://www.adscomfg.com/slip_type.html