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New Employee Spotlight – Michele Curtis

New Employee Spotlight - Michele Curtis New Employee Spotlight - Michele Curtis

We are pleased to welcome Michele Curtis as the newest member of the Wessels team, joining our inventory department at the start of September. Michele brings a strong educational background from Ivy Tech, where she studied business and mathematics, along with several years of managerial experience in manufacturing at a snack company. Outside of work, she enjoys outdoor activities, weekend road trips, and fishing with her husband, as well as spending time with her granddaughter and watching football and baseball. An interesting note about Michele is that she is left-handed. Her colleagues, who share an office with her, appreciate her positive demeanor and ability to uplift the workplace atmosphere.

Michele fast facts:

Favorite color: Purple
Favorite food: Mexican
Dislikes: Rude and unkind people

Michele Curtis
Inventory Control
Ext. 1043
Email: [email protected]

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Wessels Product Certifications from Around the World

Wessels Product Certifications from Around the World

Wessels Company manufactures and ships pressure vessels and HVAC specialty equipment all over the world, which means products must pass rigorous testing to meet a variety of international certifications.

Wessels is primarily known as an ASME shop. ASME is short for The American Society of Mechanical Engineers and is a professional organization that sets technical guidelines for mechanical manufacturers, engineers, designers and equipment operators. The ASME certification signifies stronger fabrication standards and overall operation reliability.

There are various divisions to ASME coding, but Wessels manufactures specifically to section VIII division 1. For a vessel to qualify for certification, the manufacturer must pass an on-site certification process which is monitored and approved by an ASME inspector.

Wessels typically builds to “U” stamp because it’s all-inclusive of everything we can build to Section VIII. The “UM” stamp stands for “miniature vessels,” and is only valid for pressure vessels of a certain size.
Wessels also has the ability to build to a “UM” stamp if this would be required. “UM” is also self-certifying, so there is no involvement from the third party inspection agency for certifying “UM” vessels. In some cases it is preferred to have “UM” models made. However, there’s nothing that you can build in “UM” that you can’t also build with a “U” stamp.

Other international certifications are country-specific, such as the JIS and the CRN in Japan and Canada respectively. JIS is short for Japanese Industrial Standard and it signals to users that the reliability of the product has been met to the satisfaction of the Japanese Industrial Standards Committee.

The CRN stands for Canadian Registration Number and designates the design and use of pressure vessels, piping systems, and system fittings. The CRN certification is required for each product used within a system and ensures the fabrication, inspection, and registration of each product with the National Board. Any product design that is intended for use in Canada is reviewed multiple times and must be approved in all the jurisdictions within Canada where the product may be used.

The DOSH certification, which is an abbreviation for Department of Occupational Safety and Health, is from Malaysia. Wessels products that are covered under the DOSH certification include expansion tanks, heat exchangers, and pressure vessels. Manufacturers who import these items into Malaysia must be certified by a third-party inspection agency.

For vessels used in Singapore, the certification is called MOM or Singapore Ministry of Manpower. Before pressure vessels are to be used in Singapore, the Director of Occupational Safety of their approved representative needs to approve the manufacturers process in fabrication and a report needs to be issued and accepted by an overseas inspection agency. For vessels in India, the IBR or Indian Boiler Regulation certifies fabrication and materials used in pressure vessels. 

The Pressure Equipment Directive, or PED, sets the standard for design and fabrication of pressure vessels for countries in the European Union. This certification ensures products conform to Pressure Equipment Regulations within the safety standards set in the EU.

In Australia, the AS1210 certification ensures that products meet the minimum standards for materials, design, manufacture, testing, inspection, certification and documentation requirements set by the Australian Standards for pressure vessels operated within the country. This standard specifies requirements for metallic and non-metallic vessels, or metallic vessels with non-metallic linings. This requirement is certified by inspections during various stages of the life of the vessel and it notes that the quality or other standards are met that may be relevant to the product.

Finally, Wessels Company’s liquid to liquid plate and frame heat exchangers are certified by the AHRI Standard 400. This certification ensures products meet and operate as intended and is attained after the product has been tested in a lab by third party inspection. The 400 standard means WesPlate heat exchangers meet safety, energy efficiency, and toleration level requirements set for the product by individual states and the government of the United States.

May Employee Spotlight

May Employee Spotlight

Grace Cramer is one of the new smiling faces in our Engineering Department. Grace holds the role of Product Design Engineer and has been with Wessels for 6 months. She enjoys traveling, cats, and playing board games, and she can even be found coding her own video games in her spare time.  Grace likes to root for her alma mater, Purdue, and she also watches the Colts during football season.

Grace’s fast facts:

Favorite Color: Purple
Favorite food: Pasta
Likes: Video games, cats, hot tea, and traveling
Dislikes: Cold weather, peanut butter, needles  
Fun fact: She’s a pescatarian

Grace Cramer
Product Engineer
e-mail: [email protected]
phone: 317-888-9800

Wessels Employee Wins Student Achievement Award

Wessels Employee Wins Student Achievement Award

Wessels Company’s student employee, Ashton Conley, has Won the Student Achievement Award from Central Nine Career Center in Welding Technology.

The Achievement Award is given to an outstanding Central Nine Career Center senior who is in the second year of their program and has exhibited outstanding work, good attendance, is a good citizen and has shown outstanding work ethic in the classroom and lab.  Only one award is given in each program and Ashton earned the award within in the Welding Technology program.

Welding instructor Jason Wiley recalls, “The second year I got him, unfortunately he had some problems at home I didn’t realize, and it turned out, you know, his house burned down.”

But Wiley says, he didn’t let his issues at home stop him from
excelling.

“I thought right to myself right then, this guy is good enough to go out already, he’s worked hard enough he can do it, so I called Bob and Wessels is here to honor him,” Wiley said.  “That’s how much they think about him there, and they gave him a job and the next thing you know, I’m seeing Bob and he’s telling me what a great guy (Ashton) is and how hard he works.”

“He’s a hard worker,” Bob says. “I’m happy he was selected
for this award.”

Ashton has worked at Wessels since September 2018 and plans to attend Hobart Welding Technology Institute in October to attain more welding certifications.

Wessels Company proudly congratulates Ashton Conley on earning this award.

Seeing Green with Water-Side Economizing and Free Cooling

Seeing Green with Water-Side Economizing and Free Cooling

Happy Earth Day! New requirements to repair and upgrade existing buildings and infrastructure in an effort to lower emissions and improve energy efficiency means greener energy for the planet and an opportunity to see green as HVAC equipment providers.

ASHRAE Standard 90.1 requires water-side economizers on almost all chiller installations in North America to reduce the high cost of running refrigerant compressors when making chilled water for commercial buildings. The water-side economizer cools or partially cools the chilled water loop with alternate sources to reduce electric consumption and save energy and money. The economizer takes the heat from the building chilled water loop to earth contact groundwater or to the air though an evaporative cooling tower.

The WesPlate plate and frame heat exchanger is the perfect water-side economizer. It consists of specially corrugated metal plates that maximize heat transfer. Gaskets are fixed between the plates to contain and separate two fluids. These fluids flow alternately between every other plate, counterflowing to produce the greatest rate of heat transfer and provide the closest temperature approach to the incoming cooling tower or ground water. The special surface of the heat transfer plates provides a highly turbulent flow that scrubs the plates clean to reduce fouling and creates the highest rates of heat transfer possible.

ASHRAE Standards are the specifications for engineers designing HVAC systems in North America. For ASHRAE 90.1 Energy Standard, the following requirement has been added:

6.5.1 Economizers. Each cooling system that has a fan shall include either an air or water economizer meeting the requirements of Sections 6.5.1.1 through 6.5.1.4

ASHRAE 90.1

Engineers are required to add water-side economizing plate heat exchangers to almost all of their building designs. Because the efficiency of water-side economizers is limited by climate, ASHRAE has broken the US up in to climate zones.

How does it work? When a building requires about 500 tons or more for cooling purposes you go from an air-cooled refrigerant condenser in the air conditioner to a water-cooled condenser in the chiller. With water-cooled, there is typically a cooling tower or ground contact heat sink to move the heat from the building to the outside. A plate heat exchanger water-side economizer can be added to do some or all of the heat removal required by the building.

Economics. The savings of using a water-side economizer vary based on climate conditions at the location and how much chilled water is needed year-round. Installations with data centers require year-round cooling. An older mechanical/compressor system may operate as high as 1 kw/ton of refrigeration produced, while a system with a water-side economizer installed may operate as low as 0.3 kw/ton. So the savings can be calculated by taking the difference in operating cost between the full mechanical system and the costs when the water-side economizer is operating.

Example: NYC. A water-side economizer using a cooling tower typically works best when the temperature outside is down to 45⁰. So to calculate the savings of a system we must get a temperature profile of the region to see how often the water-side economizer will be running.

Seeing Green: The only way to guarantee savings and performance is to use AHRI Standard 400 certified plate heat exchangers like the WesPlate from Wessels Company.  Wessels heat exchangers go through rigorous testing to be certified. ASHRAE 90.1 requires heat exchangers be AHRI certified and listed at www.ahridirectory.org.

For more information, check out https://www.westank.com/heat-exchangers/

April Employee Spotlight

April Employee Spotlight

April Employee Spotlight

Margaret Chojnacki is a Wessels Company Vice President and the Western Regional Sales Manager.  Margaret is the employee who has been with the company the longest, at 25 years and has been in her current position for over six.  She lives and works in Hawaii where she enjoys spending time with her family as well as swimming, SCUBA diving and sailing.  Margaret and her husband Don, who also works for Wessels, have 7 children, 7 grandchildren, and one great-granddaughter.

Margaret fast facts:

Employee
with the most longevity with the company at 25 years

Enjoys
living in Hawaii

Favorite
food: multi-cultural vegetarian cuisine                                               

Hobbies: hiking, cooking, custom
dress making

March Employee Spotlight

March Employee Spotlight

Tristan Cochran is one of the new smiling faces in Wessels Company’s customer service department. Tristan has been with Wessels for about 3 months and is learning about all our customers and how to best serve them. She considers herself shy, but she has quickly become a friendly and fun part of the Wessels family. When she’s not in the office, she can be found shopping and painting.  She loves pizza and enjoys watching the Colts during football season. 

Tristan’s fast facts:

Nickname: T
Favorite color: Black
Favorite food: Pizza
Likes: Kids, kind people, love and food
Dislikes: Rude people
Hobbies: Painting and shopping

How To: Understand Pre-Charge in Bladder Tanks

How To: Understand Pre-Charge in Bladder Tanks

This Wessels Company 'How To' technical blog features pre-charge in bladder tanks.

Pre-charged diaphragm and bladder tanks are necessary to protect systems from excessive pressure, energy, or water in a variety of scenarios. In this blog, we will discuss why you need to pre-charge, how to decide pre-charge settings, and the maintenance that should be done on this type of tank.

Pre-charge pressure is needed for bladder tanks which are used in HVAC domestic hot water, water well, pressure booster, and shock and surge applications. An engineer or maintenance person must first determine the application and pressure requirements of the system to determine the pre-charge setting.

For domestic water heating systems, the thermal expansion tank is positioned between the cold-water supply to the building and the water heater. The pre-charge pressure is set to equal the cold-water static or no flow condition. For example, if the supply line pressure is 60 psi, the pre-charge within the expansion tank should be set to 60 psi. As water flows, the flow pressure drops below static pressure. Thermal expansion protection is not needed since the expanded water is leaving the plumbing system. As flow stops and static pressure returns to the system, the pre-charged expansion tank is fully engaged to handle the expanded water.

A shock and surge arrestor accepts water at the quick closing valve to help dissipate the kinetic energy from the suddenly stopped water column. When water flows, every foot per second water flow velocity creates 65 psi of increased pressure over static. This spike will occur within a millisecond if the water is stopped suddenly. The kinetically created pressure reverberates through the pipe by increasing the pipe diameter to the point of relief, and as the pressure wave is reflected and returns, it constricts the pipe.

Most flow going through a pipe will be between 4 and 8 feet per second which equates to an increase of 260 to 520 psi. The pre-charge pressure for the arrestor should be set 10% below the flow pressure. The shock arrestor absorbs the excess pressure from the sudden energy surge. The pressure will equalize due to the energy absorption within the pipe. Instead of the buildup of the pressure damaging the pipe, the shock and surge arrestor takes the brunt of the pressure to ensure the safety of the pipe.

For a water well tank, or hydro-pneumatic system, a pressure switch controls the pump. The switch is normally set to a differential of 20 psi between the minimum required pressure for the building and the high pressure dictated by the switch. A home’s water well system is normally set to 2 psi below the pump cut-in to maximize the water stored, thus resulting in the longest pump run-time which helps extend the life and power of the pump. Within a commercial building, the normal pre-charge is set 10% below the pump cut-in pressure.

Yearly preventative maintenance should be completed to ensure your bladder or diaphragm tank is holding its pre-charge and thereby providing necessary system protection. The process of checking the tank begins with isolating the vessel from the system. A drain should be installed between the system isolation valve and the tank. If no drain is present, identify another means of discharging water from the tank. Often a plumbing union can be loosened to drain the tank water.

Check the pre-charge pressure and add pressure if needed. Note, it is best to keep the drain open when re-charging the tank so you can determine if air is passing through the bladder/diaphragm and leaving through the drain. If this occurs, the bladder/diaphragm is compromised.

Preventative maintenance will help extend the life of the tank and the bladder. It is important to check areas within the tank that might be subject to loss of pressure or air, such as any tapings or seams on the tank that may have corroded, or a malfunctioning air valve or plug. It is also important to remove the water from the bladder once a year to ensure there are no loss of pressure issues with the tank.

The pre-charge tank function ensures a minimum pressure. A designer will typically determine this based on building height, minimum pressure needed at each fixture, or what will result in the greatest system protection.

To learn about correctly sizing an expansion tank, check out this related article:

https://www.westank.com/how-to-size-well-water-and-pressure-booster-tanks/
February Employee Spotlight

February Employee Spotlight

February Employee Spotlight

David Shirrell, or DJ as he is known at Wessels Company is in the Shipping and Receiving Department.  He has been with Wessels for over 3 years and has held two different jobs.  When he’s not at work, DJ can be found watching football and rooting for the Indianapolis Colts and Philadelphia Eagles.  He also enjoys showing and building custom cars, truck and motorcycles. He enjoys upgrading and installing car audio systems and custom vehicle parts.

February Employee Feature for David Shirrell.
DJ Shirrell

DJ fast facts:                                                                  

Favorite color:  Red

Favorite food: Pizza                                                                    

Likes: spending time with his family and the outdoors

Dislikes: rude people, racism and negativity

Hobbies: car audio, sports, custom vehicles

Hidden Talent: singing