Markets

Pipe Bending for the Midwest and Great Plains

Refining, ethanol, grain handling and power work, within a day of Tulsa by road.

What this region buys

The plains states carry a scattered refining base, at places like Ponca City and El Dorado, that is smaller per site than the Gulf Coast but works to the same codes and buys the same heavy-wall process bends.

Ethanol and grain processing are the sector that is specific to this region. Both are heat transfer businesses, which means coils rather than bends: helical and serpentine runs inside evaporators, dryers and heat exchangers.

Grain handling brings the other kind of work. Conveying sweeps wear out where the product hits the outside of the turn, so a long-radius bend lasts where a fitting does not, and replacement sweeps are recurring rather than one-time work.

Getting the work there

Kansas City is roughly 250 road miles from Tulsa and most of the plains states are inside a single day of driving, which makes this the region where a same-week delivery is realistic. Interstate 44 runs through Tulsa toward St. Louis and I-35 is an hour west.

Load-out is part of the job on large work rather than something that happens afterwards. A bend that fits the drawing does not always fit a road, and a piece that has to be re-rigged twice on the way out costs more in handling than it did in bending. Tell us the destination at quote stage and it is planned rather than improvised.

Nothing on this page claims a specific job in this region. Spec discipline on this build is that a location page passes on real market facts and never on invented local work, so where a project is named anywhere on this site it is because it is identifiable from the photograph. The rest waits until the customer has agreed to be named.

Quoting for this market

Five numbers describe a bend: outside diameter, wall thickness, centerline radius, bend angle and the tangent length on each end. Add the material, the quantity and the code or specification and the job can be priced. The quote form takes a drawing up to 25 MB.

For plains work, say whether the part is a coil or a bend before anything else, because they need different information. A bend takes five numbers; a coil takes the coil diameter, the pitch, the number of turns and passes, and where the inlets and outlets land. If you are replacing a worn conveying sweep, a photograph with the dimensions marked is usually enough.

Tell us the delivery date at enquiry stage rather than after the order. On most jobs from outside Oklahoma the transit is the predictable part and the documentation package is not, so the date is decided by whether the testing and the certificates can be complete rather than by the miles.

Codes and paperwork this market expects

Plains work is mixed: ASME B31.1 and Section I on the refining and power side, ASME Section VIII and TEMA on heat exchanger and evaporator work, and customer or OEM specifications on grain handling and ag equipment.

American Pipe Bending is an A.S.M.E. code shop holding the U and S stamps, covering Section I and Section VIII work, and American Pipe Bending, Inc. is listed in the National Board Manufacturer and Repair Directory. Alongside ASME the shop works to A.N.S.I., A.W.W.A., PFI-ES24 and MSS-SP75, and to the piping codes B31.1, B31.3, B31.4 and B16.49.

Non-destructive testing runs here to your specification: x-ray, liquid penetrant, magnetic particle, ultrasonic, Magnaflux, Brinell hardness, positive material identification, elemental analysis and hydrostatic testing, along with in-plant stress relieving. Keeping those on the same floor as the bend removes a transport leg and a handoff from the schedule, which is usually where time is lost.