Dunlop Oil and Marine
Bespoke instrumentation solution.
Dunlop Oil and Marine, part of the ContiTech Division of Continental AG, is a world leader in the design, manufacture and supply of hoses for the oil, gas and petrochemical industries, for both offshore and onshorebased operations.
As part of their in-house testing, analysis of polymeric samples is carried out using a pyrolysis probe which is inserted into a horizontally aligned injector of a gas chromatograph (GC). When the GC came to the end of its useful life, it was to be replaced with a newer instrument. The majority of readily available, current production model gas chromatographs have vertically accessible injector ports, which meant that sample retention in the pyrolysis probe became an issue.
Speck & Burke were approached to provide an engineered solution. Finding that there was no appetite amongst the original equipment manufacturers that were asked to supply an instrument to the required specification, a custom modification to a reconditioned GC was judged as the most efficient and cost-effective way to proceed.
Key challenges
- Design, supply and install a custom engineered product.
- Location of suitable non-standard position for inlet on GC chassis.
- Alteration of existing hardware services.
- Fast turnaround required.
Our approach
- Verify compatibility of components.
- Design specification to avoid ‘cold-spots’ in new injector position.
- Verification of interfacing and operation.
Outcome
- Modern GC interfaced with legacy pyro-probe.
- Modified inlet configured for horizontal access.
