Hot Tapping

As one of the country’s foremost Hot Tapping Contractors our services have been used in a variety of critical environments, such as live data centres, pharmaceutical works, hospitals & nuclear facilities.

APS’ Hot tap services provide reliable, safe and controlled entry into live piping, vessels and tanks operating at pressure or vacuum without losing product or interrupting system operations.

APS’ pipe Hot tapping (Under Pressure Drilling), wall tapping services have been used extensively and successfully both nationally and internationally for making live branch connections (hot tap connections) for a variety of applications such as hot tapping gas pipelines. Our specialist equipment means APS can carry out hot tap applications on lines from ½” to 48” in diameter with temperatures from below freezing to 200˚C + and pressures ranging up to 40 bar.

The Method

The process begins with fitting a new branch to the host pipeline. The new fittings can be attached by welding or by using mechanical (clamp) hot tapping split tee, a full bore isolation valve is then installed, the branch and valve is then pressure tested and a sealed drill rig attached to the valve. The pipe is then drilled while the valve is in the open position, the drill is then withdrawn and the valve closed. The drill is then removed from the valve and a blanking flange or plug fitted.

Applications

Pipeline Hot tapping is performed by APS certified technicians, using specialist machine(s) suitable for each and every application. All undertakings of hottapping pipe are carried out in accordance with the company’s Hot Tapping Procedure.

Common Applications for hot tapping pipe services include:

Common Equipment / Materials Serviced:

New construction tie-ins
Installation of by-pass systems
Pressure and vacuum gauge installation
New pipeline construction
Sight glass installations
Quality control sample points
Valve installations

Common Pipeline Mediums:

Pipe freezing is widely acknowledged as a safe, reliable and highly cost effective method of temporary pipeline isolation and offers a number of major benefits some of which are:-

Benefits

Services maintained with little or no disruption
Little or no loss of harmful liquids or gases
Ingress of contamination drastically reduced
No drain down or backfilling time
Ideal for isolating sections of ring mains
Can be applied to a large range of Liquids, Gasses and Compressed Air
Suited for Fire protection, Sprinkler systems and Hydrants etc.
ous materials and enhances safety when working on lines containing contaminated or volatile liquids.

Animation that shows the general principle of the "Hot Tapping" procedure. Hot tapping allows for a new branch connection to be made into a n existing pipeline without the need to shutdown the system and drain it.