Acid Scrubber Header Ideas 1

[reploglejj]

Brief explanation: I've been tasked with designing a quicker means of disconnecting the headers on our acid scrubber. Currently the headers are attached to the unit with a rectangular flange made of polypropylene and has about 16+ nut/bolt sets fastening each one on. The header pipe and rectangular flange are all one piece. The headers fill with sludge and by-product from the processes at the plant and need to be completely removed to be cleaned out. Its a safe procedure because everything is rinsed and neutralized prior to header removal but the down time seems way longer than it needs to be with the removal of all of the nuts and bolts.

My question: I've been searching online and racking my brain but can not find a solution. I first was looking into something like a camlock system but really outside of house fittings I cant find much, let alone a "rectangular flange camlock system." The only solution I can come up with is to reduce the amount of bolts. Upon tightening the flanges back, up after cleaning, it appeared to be over-kill having that many. But if my solution is simply reducing the amount of bolts, I'm thinking the cost of downtime will be less than remaking all the headers with fewer bolt holes.

Any ideas are greatly appreciated. If I left out any important details to contribute to the solution just let me know. Thanks again!

 

[Compositepro]

V-band clamps are about the fastest method, but work better on round rather than square flanges. With no modification to the flanges or gaskets you can easily switch to quick-release nuts.

http://www.mcmaster.com/#quick-threading-nuts/=qu5l3u

 

[reploglejj]

Compsitepro -

Thanks for the suggestions! Those quick-release nuts are really cool. I didn't even these existed. After reading your response the light bulb over my head came on finally. Do you or anyone else on here know if there something like this exists for industrial application? All I can find are these for bike seats:

http://img.dxcdn.com/productimages/sku_243083_3.jpg

I was thinking about swing bolts but the flange is poly plastic and would probably be easily cracked or broken off at the hinge if I was even able to have one made up. If anyone has any idea if they make these "skewer rods" for industrial application and not just bicycle seats let me know. I'm going to keep browsing around.