Typical Sphere Applications

Home Typical Sphere Applications

Liquid Batch Separation:

Spheres are used for separating various products such as gasolines, fuel oils, crude oils, jet fuels, and other petroleum products transported through a pipeline. Product integrity is maintained while navigating tees and ells.

Line Testing:

Spheres purge air from the pipeline to insure accurate hydrostatic testing. This is achieved by inserting a sphere ahead of the water column which displaces the air. Spheres can remain in the line throughout all phases of testing. Once the test is complete, the spheres are used to dewater the pipeline.

Line Maintenance:

Spheres maintain pipeline integrity by removing paraffin and condensate. During pipeline corrosion control maintenance, spheres are used to batch corrosion inhibitors.

Meter Prover Spheres:

Spheres gauge volume displacement to confirm the accuracy of flow meters.

Sphere Pump:

A sphere pump is recommended to properly inflate a sphere. The pump is easy to operate by placing the appropriate fluid in the filling cup, attaching the hose to the valve body in the sphere, and manually pressing the handle.

THE ORIGINAL INNOVATOR OF THE PIPELINE SPHERE

Elite Spheres are specially designed and compounded for optimum resiliency, wear-resistance and long life, evidenced by our thick wall construction. Elite Spheres are compression-molded at cavity pressure exceeding 2000 PSI.   We do not pour-cast nor rotational-mold any of our spheres.  The compression molding process is critical to ensuring a uniform density of the compounded material and to yield a wear-life that is unmatched in the industry!

During sphere production, each molded hemisphere is subjected to an intensive physical inspection. Following assembly and post-curing, every sphere is inflated to a specified increased diameter for 24 hours. This critical step is taken to assure that every Elite Sphere that leaves our factory will fulfill the exacting demands of the task for which it was designed. Inflatable spheres are available in 4″ sizes and larger. Solid spheres are available from 1-1/2″ through 4″ diameters in all materials. Limited larger solid spheres are available in polyurethane materials only.

USES OF MALONEY SPHERES

Elite Spheres have the following uses:

  • Liquid displacer in Meter Prover Loops
  • Liquid product separator
  • Signal actuating device
  • Two-phase flow
  • Hydrostatic testing
  • Liquid removal in gas line