The Smart-Hose Connection

Smart Hose

Technologies

"Keeping You Connected"

Happy Holidays

To all our valued customers' best wishes for the holiday season and thank you for your business, we look forward to serving you in 2010.

What's New at Smart-Hose Technologies:

Rob Nathans has joined the Smart-Hose team as a new Sales-Engineer. Rob brings over twenty four years experience working with Distributors and OEM's.

CSA Markings:

Effective immediately all LPG hoses being shipped into Canada will have the CSA label affixed to them, when ordering please let us know if these hoses will ultimately be shipping into Canada.

Patented Technology:

Smart-Hose Technologies takes great pride in providing our customers with the, "world's safest patented engineered hose assembly." We are the only company to have a double shut off design utilizing an internal cable. "Accept No Substitutes"

The Product We Have All Been Waiting For

It's Here!

By Donna M. Kasuska, Consultant, Speaker and Author to the Chemical Industry.

Do you remember back in the 1980's when the concept of process safety began to take hold in the chemical industry? As a process engineer in a large chemical plant at that time I was working to implement process safety programs for four hazardous chemicals: chlorine, hydrochloric acid, anhydrous ammonia and phosphorous oxychloride. We did our Process Hazard Analyses (PHA's) and put operating procedures, emergency procedures and maintenance programs in place to prevent or mitigate the scenarios that the PHA's identified. We added administrative safeguards and engineering controls to each part of the process that we identified that needed risk reduction. We utilized a significant amount of our resources and ended up with processes that had significantly improved risk numbers - with still one major weak link remaining to be addressed.

The one major weak link that needed to be addressed was the chemical transfer hose between the raw material delivery vessel and the storage tank. This issue has always represented the most challenging safety issue to address due to the need to shut off the flow in two directions, quickly, in a manner that protects the plant operators, and so that no one has to enter the "radius of impact". The problem was further complicated by the desire to shut offthe flow as close to each vessel as possible to ensure that all possible failure points were included.

In the past, the best way to address this problem was to use remote actuated valves on either side ofthe hose assembly. However, whenever the hose diameter was larger than I W' it became increasingly difficult to safely connect and disconnect the hose I valve to the delivery vessel due to the sheer weight and size of the valves. Additionally, the remote actuated valves needed to be tested each time they were reconnected to ensure that the controls were operating properly and had not been inadvertently disabled while the hose was disconnected. And of course the biggest concern with remote actuated valves has always been the dilemma over how to actuate them. Often these valves were dependent on either operator intervention or chemical sensors. Although this was effective, it was costly to maintain and not very reliable.

Now the solution to that problem is easy because Smart-Hose is available. Smart-Hose solves the above problems in the following ways:

1. 1. The flow is shut down instantaneously in both directions.
2. 2. The shutoff mechanism does not require operator intervention.
3. 3. The flow is stopped immediately so the only material that can leak is the material that was already in the hose, so there is
4.     no "radius of impact" to enter.
5. 4. The shutoff valves are in the hose couplings, which protects the entire length of hose.
6. 5. The valves make the couplings only slightly heavier than a typical hose coupling, so there is no heavy valve to maneuver.
7. 6. There are no controls that need to be tested.
8. 7. Smart-Hose is a passive shutoff system that does not need to be actuated externally.

These seven reasons are why Smart-Hose is the smart choice for chemical transfer hose. I believe the Smart-Hose technology offers significant risk reduction for chemical processes and that is why I recommend Smart-Hose as an additional layer ofprotection to reduce the risk of chemical spills/releases during chemical transfer operations.