The Glorified Plumber

Valve operation. Those two words are reverberating in my ears for quite sometime. It consumes a major part of the vocabulary of the people around me. Partly because, valves are an inevitable entity in any process industry, which controls the flow of fluids. But it is mainly because of the frustration of the blue-collared valve-operating engineers working in shifts, in extreme climates, wearing grease and oil coated clothes and operating valves.
Some chemical engineers feel it a bit derogatory to operate valves in a plant. Just as one need not be a mechanical engineer to drive a car or to repair it, one need not be a chemical engineer to run a plant or to repair it. On the other hand, just as a blockhead can break a car down with his driving or trying a hand at the repair, an improper valve operation can blow up a plant.

The show begins when a valve needs to be operated. Operation means it needs to be either opened or closed, either completely or partially in both cases, just as you open and close a household tap. A friend of mine explained like this to his mom: 'You know the tap on our wash basin? A valve is the same thing, only it is bigger, dirtier and more harder to turn.' A valve could be a manually operated valve or it could be a control valve. A control valve is not generally operated by humans. You have pressurised air, pressurised water or electricity to do that job. Blessed are those who invented the control valve for they have saved countless hours of manual labour. If it is a control valve, the worry is less because it can be operated either by a mouse click or a keyboard stroke from the control room. But if it is a manual valve, the fun begins. The instruction to operate a valve comes from the plant control room as the field operators generally don't take the initiative to avoid inviting comments of being over-smart. When the control room instruction is from a reasonably behaved person, you usually go and do the job. But if the instruction is from a dumb-witted moron who gives it to emphasise their authority or to create a havoc by their consistent barks, you just wait. And reply, 'I'll do it' or 'I'm doing it' or the more popular 'I'm on my way' when you actually relax and wait for the requirement of valve operation to subside. But finally when the control room operator screams on the walkie-talkie, 'C'mon, move your ass. Open the bloody valve.' you get up from your field cabin and move towards to valve. Every step seems so long as you approach the valve. You drag your feet, jump over pipes, climb the monkey ladder and reach the valve. Just when you start opening the valve you realise that the valve wheel is covered with grease and dirt. Then you think of using a cotton hand gloves, which should have been resting in your pocket. But when in need it, it is always back in your cabin. Then you descent all the way down through the monkey ladder, to fetch a pair of gloves.

When you start opening the valve with gloves, you realise that your muscle power is insufficient to open a the valve. Thus starts a hunt - the hunt for the most valued tool in field known as the valve-key. A valve-key is to a valve just as a spanner is to a nut. The valve-key helps you extend the diameter, giving the mechanical advantage, so that with less torque you can open a valve. Valve-keys are generally kept on a valve-key stand at a known place. But as it usually happens, the valve-key will never be there. You start searching for the valve-keys in the field. It is usually during this time, the scream comes from the control room, 'What the eff are you doing? Why the hell are you not opening the valve?' Then, for the first time, you reply the truth, 'Gimme a sec, I'm searching for valve-keys.' Surfing in the field, you find a valve-key lying as an orphan below some pump, smiling at your misfortune. You fetch the valve-key, wear you gloves and climb the monkey-ladder to try again. But as you already guessed, it so happens that the size of valve key never fits the valve. Now you are frustrated to the core that you won't feel like going back and searching the right size. So you invent methods of locking the wrong-sized valve-key to the wheel and open it. And if it so happened that you found a proper sized valve key, the curved portion should be pointing upwards while opening, and pointing downwards while closing. Even though you have done it a thousand times, the first time attempt you always lock it wrong.
You open the valve with the wrong-sized valve-key in a locking position you just invented. Just when you begin to wonder whether the effect of valve opening has started to show, there shouts the control room, 'What the heck? Do it slowly! Don't you know what will happen?' Then you steer a bit left left, steer a bit right, to finally arrive at the required flow rate.

This evolved valve standard operating happenings happens all the time. It sometimes has some deviations. Sometimes one of your irritating supervisors pass by, sees you opening the valve and comments, 'Your experience can be judged by the way open a valve.' boasting his experience. Or when you reach the valve in the first step, you see the valve has no hand wheel. Or the gearbox has been removed. Then instead of the hunt for the valve-key, it is for the variable wrench. In yet another instant, for a not-particularly-beautiful, not-so-coloured, beautifully-named, butterfly valve, you discover a missing 'quarter-pin'. If it was broken, chances are that it was broken before and you can find those pieces lying around. And if those lying around pins do not fit, you finally insert a welding rod and operate the valve

The worst part is the malfunctioning of the boon called control valve. Sometimes, it just gets bored of being remotely controlled and thus one fine shift, stops working. Poor thing. How long can it be a puppet with some guy pulling the strings. It stops working calling for some personal attention. To operate a control valve manually, which is accustomed to remote operations, is bit of a job. Find the lever that changes the mode from automatic to manual, try turning with hand wheel, or extra efforts with valve-keys, spanners and variable wrenches. Whatever you do, whichever be the type, in the first attempt it never opens.

Valve operation is thus an art in itself. One of my ex-bosses once commented on the dilemma of chemical engineers becoming a glorified plumber, "You are not paid for the valve you operate. You are paid for the responsibility you undertake. You are paid for the knowledge of knowing which valve to operate and how to do it." Merely looking at the manual labour, one shouldn't dishearten. Valve operation needs meticulous planning, adroitness and a bit of killer instinct. To identify the type of valve, tools to open it, ways to approach it, applying the right torque and so on to get the precise flow rate with the least amount of effort. May be you don't need to be a chemical engineer to operate a valve. But the planning, precision and the foresight of the effects with which a chemical engineer operates it, is unparalleled. Amen.