Emerson Opens New $30M Pipe Testing Center

MARSHALLTOWN, IA-Emerson Process Management has opened a 136,000-square-foot industrial center here. The $30 million facility is designed to help energy and process manufacturing firms test equipment to build future nuclear plants, mega-train liquefied natural gas plants and large oil and gas refineries.

The building is mainly made up of pipes and valves, and laboratories to test these systems. The center is home to the world’s largest “flow lab” that enables large vales to be tested in real-world plant conditions to ensure production reliability, efficiency, environmental compliance and safety before being installed at a customer site, according to Emerson officials. “No other facility in the world can do what our center can do, from seismically qualifying a 35,000-pound control valve to testing a two-story-tall valve that controls the flow of feedstocks for a petrochemical plant,” said Steve Sonnenberg, president, in a statement.

Seismic qualification is important to making nuclear plants safe and reliable during earthquakes. The company was recently awarded contracts to provide valves for Westinghouse Electric Co.’s newest generation of nuclear power plants. “We plan to take advantage of this new facility to prove out critical operating characteristics,” said William Rice, director of engineering for Westinghouse.

The center required almost two million pounds of process piping, more than 1,600 feet of 30-inch and 36-inch pipe, seven underground air storage tanks and more than 4,500 cubic yards of concrete. The center’s flow lab has enough capacity to fill an Olympic-sized pool in just more than eight minutes, or a Goodyear blimp in about 12 seconds, said company officials. Control valves can be tested at pressures up to 3,500 pounds per square inch, the equivalent of providing enough force to support a sport utility vehicle on a postage stamp, according to Emerson executives. The property also has a 26,000-square-foot sound chamber to verify noise levels of new devices before a customer’s plant is built.