Welding & Gases Today Editor’s Blog 
  

Here is an interesting tidbit that might spark some ideas for additional sales of gases and welding equipment in your area.

Local jewelry manufacturers in New Mexico have been given an opportunity to be more competitive, thanks to the Socorro County Chamber of Commerce and a grant from the USDA Rural Business Enterprise fund.

The Chamber purchased $54,000 of state-of-the-art manufacturing equipment to be used cooperatively by local jewelers who meet certain small business criteria.

The equipment includes a laser welder, milling machine and vacuum casting machine.

The community qualified for the grant because it meets federal guidelines of being located in a rural area with high unemployment, low wages and few manufacturing or production jobs. The primary goal of the grant program is to encourage economic development in rural communities by retaining and creating additional jobs.

All the equipment purchased is the property of the federal government. Quarterly reports detailing its use must be submitted for three years as a condition of the grant.

It’s a major annual event for the Gases and Welding Distributors Association—the announcement of the new GAWDA board of directors, who will help lead the association through the coming year.

For 2009-10, we thought we’d handle the introduction a bit differently than in years past, when we would publish photos along with brief Q&As to help association members get to know the board a little better.

This time around, we centered the introduction on the theme of the board of directors as “superheroes” of the association, giving of their time and sharing their industry expertise to help make the association and the industry stronger.

In keeping with that theme, this year we developed a five-page comic-book style treatment to introduce the board, which you can see online at http://www.weldingandgasestoday.org/content/1q10/meetboard2009.pdf.

I hope you like it.

The U.S. Chemical Safety Board (CSB) has released a new video safety message asking for nationwide adoption of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) Pressure Vessel Code to reduce the number of accidents involving major pressure vessel failures.

In the message, CSB Chairman John Bresland warns that “pressure vessels store tremendous amounts of energy and you should never become complacent about the risks.”

Particular danger exists when vessels are improperly installed, welded or modified, or when they lack effective pressure relief systems, Bresland says, and provides the following examples:

• An explosion at a natural gas well in Louisiana killed four workers when a tank rated only for atmospheric pressure was exposed to gas pressure up to 800 lbs. per sq. in.
• An eight-foot tank used to heat sugar caramel exploded when the vent line became blocked. The explosion killed an overnight operator, released large amounts of ammonia and forced a community evacuation.
• A 50,000 lb. pressure vessel that exploded at a chemical plant was found by CSB to be improperly modified and welded by the company that owned it.

The ASME Code provides the fundamental safeguards for pressure vessels including design, welding procedures and fabrication, testing and pressure relief.

The clock is ticking for NASA to stock the International Space Station with all the oversized parts necessary for the station to continue to function beyond 2010, when the Space Shuttle Program ends. After that, according to NASA, there will be no U.S. spacecraft big enough to carry large replacement parts to the station.

Atlantis docked at the space station on Nov. 16. Shuttle and space station astronauts are now hard at work unloading a staggering shopping list.

There are two express logistics carriers (ELCs) that are being installed on the station’s truss. Bolted to the ELCs will be 27,250 lbs. of spare parts, including two 600-lb. control moment gyro assemblies; a 415-lb. latching end effector; 1,702-lb. ammonia tank assembly; two 780-lb. cooling-system pump module assemblies; and equipment for future experiments. 

Crucial parts related to the industrial gases industry that were included in the Atlantis payload were two nitrogen tank assemblies weighing 550 lbs. each that will be used to pressurize the ammonia tank assemblies for the station cooling system; and a 1,240-lb. high-pressure gas tank filled with 220 lbs. of gaseous oxygen for the station’s ventilation system.

A significantly emptier Atlantis will return to Earth on November 27.

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Are correctional facilities among your gases and welding customers? If not, it’s definitely an avenue well worth exploring—both for the products you sell and for welder training and certification.

Correctional facilities have long strived to provide programs that teach inmates skills they can use once they have are released. Among the skills being taught at some of these facilities is welding—a smart move at a time when the welder shortage in the United States is so severe.

An example of this is taking place in Newcastle, Wyoming, where the state’s Department of Workforce Services has partnered with the Wyoming Department of Corrections to bring welder training to incarcerated individuals so that when they are released, they will be better prepared to enter the workforce.

Most recently, according to the Wyoming Business Report, welding training was offered at the minimum-security Newcastle Honor Farm. A similar program was conducted earlier this year at the Women’s Center in Lusk, Wyoming, to train inmates in heavy equipment operation.

Jeff White, the Employment Training for Self-Sufficiency Program manager for the Wyoming Department of Workforce Services, told the Wyoming Business Report: “The idea behind the program was to partner with Department of Correction. We contacted Eastern Wyoming College and arranged to use their mobile welding lab. They took their mobile welding lab to the Newcastle Honor Farm and conducted a six-week welding certification course on the Honor Farm site.”

The program just graduated six inmates at a ceremony at the Newcastle facility. The inmates participating in the training program were short-term felons who were incarcerated in Newcastle’s low risk facility.

“When these guys get released, they will have this certificate in their hands and be able to relocate wherever they desire, White said. “They will work with our local Workforce Centers to try and find a welding job.”

The goal of the program is to give inmates a chance to earn a livable wage and contribute to the betterment of their families, their children and themselves.

Here’s a great story to share with your helium gas customers.

A farmer in England recently took some heat for setting off a nationwide UFO sighting frenzy with helium-filled party balloons he had roped together and set aloft above his property to show people how to get to his home.

Johnny Hewitt, 35, had packed hundreds of colored helium-filled balloons containing miniature LEDs in a net and floated them above his farm. Little did he know that the glowing mass would catch the eye of UFO-spotters throughout England. The “sighting” wound up being reported on local radio and television. Local astronomy experts suggesting it could be a planet or part of a meteor shower.

As news of the mystery sighting reached Hewitt, he knew immediately that all the fuss had been caused by his party beacon. “I didn’t think it would be so spooky and I certainly didn’t expect it to draw so much attention,” he told the London Telegraph.

No sooner had the balloons been sent aloft, than passersby began stopping to watch it and snap photos with their cell phones. Because of all the attention, Hewitt pulled down the balloons as soon as all the guests had arrived and stashed them in his barn. Later, Hewitt began hearing stories about alien spaceship sightings and suddenly realized that it had been his balloons that everyone was talking about, and immediately contacted authorities and owned up.

Here’s an interesting twist on why some gas cylinders may go missing and where some of them may be ending up.

A metal recycling factory has been causing quite a stir among its neighbors because of loud blasts emanating from the operation. The cause? Gas cylinders hidden inside junk vehicles that are exploding when the vehicles are crushed or shredded.

 According to a manager at the British scrap metal company, the reason the cylinders are being hidden in the vehicles is that the people scrapping the cars want them to be as heavy as possible, because extra weight means more money. While all vehicles are visually inspected on site before demolition, if hidden carefully enough, the cylinders remain undetected until the recycling process causes them to explode.

A local businessperson estimated that there had been close to 40 such explosions so far this year. “It’s like an earthquake; everything shakes,” she said.

 The manager said that the scrapping machinery is built to withstand the impact of the cylinder explosions and that there is little or no danger to anyone. He added that the company is working with a government environmental agency and keeps records of all explosions. The recycler also recently suspended deliveries from one supplier after a series of explosions from its metal.

Las Vegas hosts the world’s largest helium balloon

 Now here’s an industrial gas contract worth vying for: Cloud Nine, the world’s largest helium balloon, is now taking thrill seekers for rides above the Las Vegas Strip.

 Cloud Nine is a tethered balloon that can carry up to 30 passengers at a time in a customized gondola that offers 360 degree views of Las Vegas from 500 feet in the air. The seven-story-wide, eleven-story-high balloon is illuminated from within, making it visible for miles during night flights.

 The attraction was developed by Cloud Nine Entertainment and designed by the French company Aerophile. The European-style balloon was originally commissioned for The America’s Cup yacht race in Valencia, Spain. Cloud Nine was inspired by similar balloon attractions in Paris, Hong Kong and Dubai.

Be warned—the ride doesn’t come cheap. Tickets are $17.50-$22.50 for kids 12 and under and $22.50-$27.50 for adults.

Considering that cylinder tracking through bar coding has become such an important part of many gases and welding distributors’ businesses, I thought you might be interested to know that today is the 57th anniversary of the first patent for the bar code.

Inventors Norman Woodland and Bernard Silver filed the patent in 1949, which was granted on October 7, 1952. The original patent was for a system that would encode data in a bulls eye pattern so that it was scanable in any direction.

In the world of gas cylinder distribution, the bar code is a technical innovation that has become an essential part of business. So much so, in fact, that the feature section of most recent issue of Welding & Gases Today devotes considerable space to the topic of bar codes as an invaluable tool for your business.

If you haven’t done so already, be sure to check it out at Welding & Gases Today Online.

You can learn more about the history of the bar code here.

Cleaner Refrigeration with CO₂

EPA Approves Use of CO₂ to Replace Hydro-chlorofluorocarbons

In my previous blog I shared some interesting news about companies testing new refrigerators and freezers that use environmentally friendlier gases such as propane for cooling.

GAWDA members should also be interested to know that carbon dioxide  (CO₂) is also being tapped for the same function.

A company based in Georgia named Hill Phoenix just received approval from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to use CO₂ as a replacement for hydrochlorofluorocarbons (HCFCs) in retail refrigeration. EPA acceptance will allow the industry to dramatically lower the global warming potential of both low and medium temperature refrigeration systems.

The green light came under the EPA’s Significant New Alternatives Policy (SNAP) program, which evaluates alternatives to substances being phased out to protect the stratospheric ozone layer. Hill Phoenix will begin offering CO₂ as a refrigerant option in its low and medium temperature refrigeration products in late 2009.

As well as replacing ozone-depleting R-22, CO₂ can be used to replace R-507A or R-404A, HCFCs that are commonly used in large amounts as a secondary refrigerant in retail refrigeration and significant contributors to global warming.

“CO₂ is an excellent refrigerant with superior thermodynamic and transport properties, compared to the HFCs in use today,” says David Hinde, Hill Phoenix manager of research and development. “It will not only significantly reduce the potential for global warming, but the refrigeration systems that incorporate CO₂ will also see a reduction in energy consumption.”

 While Hill Phoenix was the first to receive SNAP approval for CO₂ use in supermarkets as a replacement for HCFCs, the company believes it benefits the entire industry because all manufacturers can apply the technology.

“Many retail food operators are already working hard to reduce their carbon footprint,” notes Scott Martin, director of sustainable technologies for Hill Phoenix. “CO₂ technology gives them one more choice to help achieve their sustainability goals.”