Fiber optics manufacturer OFS uses a highly specialized facility to turn preforms of solid glass into long, super-thin fiber optic cable. Such an environment requires great purity, beginning with the handling of air. In 2018, B&K was assigned to build HVAC mechanical, plumbing and process piping for a new manufacturing facility on its Norcross, Ga. campus. Our work not only passed multiple stringent tests for purity. It also recommended ways in which OFS could save time.
Achieving this requires a specialized facility. Think about it – to turn a blob of glass into something so long and thin demands a space of immense height.
It also must be a highly pure environment – if the air or materials are contaminated, the integrity of the fiber is compromised.
In 2018, we helped OFS build such an environment. It took the form of a seven-story building called the Ultra-Tall Draw (UTD) tower. The name says it all – the building’s tall, and inside, you draw out glass fiber – and this was OFS’s fourth such tower at its Norcross, Ga. manufacturing complex. It was also the tallest.
Our scope was to build the HVAC mechanical, plumbing and process piping for the entire building. Much of this was conventional – but that tall open area in the center of the building, which held 12 “draw” towers for manufacturing the fiber, was anything but.
Think about it - to turn a blob of glass into something so long and thin demands a space of immense height.
The specialized equipment needed to manufacture the fiber came with requirements for air handling – outside air brought in, conditioned and exhausted. The manufacturing areas themselves had two different levels of cleanliness that had to be achieved, ISO 7 and 8. Both needed to be kept at an unwavering 68 degrees with 50% humidity.
On his first walk-through of the site, our foreman, Chris Milam, looked over how systems were to be laid out.
“One observation Chris made saved OFS considerable time and money,” says Bill Doty, who ran the project. “He recognized that by changing the location of the tie-in points for the process chilled water, they could shorten the distance from the original design. Less pipe would be needed, and that reduced material cost and installation time.”
Much of that piping would carry natural gases, requiring purity in the pipe itself. Thus, we began our work in B&K’s (Class 1000) clean-room fabrication facility in Conyers, Ga. There, using orbital welding procedures meeting specifications and preserving purity, we assembled three-fourths of the welded specialty gas piping in sections.
The medical-grade copper and (316L) stainless steel piping we fabricated was factory cleaned, bagged and capped for deployment to the construction site. Installing it meant we had to follow a system of stringent protocols.
“If you just rip open the bags and get to work, you let dirt, dust and moisture get into the pipe,” Doty explains. “So, before you open everything up, you have to put in place a purge gas like Nitrogen and ultra-high purity Argon. And you have to keep that flowing the entire time to make sure conditions are perfectly consistent.”
OFS had onsite inspectors watching the construction and installation process, and their test for purity was the one we had to pass.
“If you fail, you have to either buy a lot of expensive gas to blow through in an effort to gain purity,” Doty says, “or else you have to replace sections of the pipe altogether.”
None of that was required here (thanks to quality workmanship and our own ongoing weld inspections). Our work passed the purity test.
“We also made the deadline, which carried stringent penalties if the project was late,” Doty says. “Everyone was very happy.”
OFS had onsite inspectors watching the construction and installation process, and their test for purity was the one we had to pass.
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