Design and build 3 ea. APE (Ammunition Peculiar Equipment) horizontal afterburners for the U.S. Army. These afterburners (also known as thermal oxidizers) eliminate Volatile Organic Compounds leftover from the hazardous waste incinerators designed to dispose of explosives and ammunition items. These units had to meet stringent EPA requirements and meet all government testing and documentation requirements. The units had to be assembled and inspected prior to shipment. Finch was responsible to provide a complete burner, combustion blower, air & gas manifold assemblies and afterburner combustion system control panel.
Project Overview
Project Specifications
- After extensive review and detailed engineering discussions, Finch developed a drawings package and submitted and received approval.
- These units needed to fit specific buildings and meet exact size and weight requirements for the base, shell, and burners components.
- The design included items such as locations for view ports, thermocouples, control panels, other instruments, and lifting rings.
- Worked through the extensive government certifications and submitted plans for completion outlining exact compliance to safety, environmental, metal finishing standards, finishes, etc.
- Worked with government team to finalize fabrication and proof testing details.
- Finch was responsible to provide the complex burners, combustion blowers, air & gas manifold assemblies and afterburner combustion system control panel.
- To prevent shell temperatures from exceeding a specific temperature on the afterburners, Finch designed and installed Morgan Thermal Ceramics Pyro-Bloc modules and other ceramic fiber products within the shells.
- These systems required hundreds of specific parts as specified by the contract to be ordered, stored, assembled, disassembled, shipped to the specific post and reinstalled.
- Finch cut, drilled/tapped, welded, finished, and assembled these systems to their exact specifications.
- The acceptance testing required Finch to fully assemble the afterburner to demonstrate that each unit could be correctly assembled and be safely lifted with a crane by the lifting rings and maneuvered, without causing deformation or structural damage. Due to COVID-19, this was performed via video.
- Final shipping required the fabrication of specially designed insulation bracing to prevent damage during the long distance to the site.
- Project required fabrication of durable ID plates listing all specified information.
- The final delivery package included (1) paper and (2) complete digital versions of the detailed drawings, footprint drawings, electrical schematics, MSDS sheets, and operators manual.
- This project was completed per the delivery schedule and within budget.