Fiocruz Instituto de Tecnologia em Imunobiologicos, a Brazilian Government Institute, completed what will become the largest manufacturing center for vaccines in Latin America which will have the capability to process a total of 180 million doses per year of vaccines against yellow fever, smallpox, tuberculosis, typhoid fever, and measles. (DPT and meningitis AC vaccines will be added in the next 2 years.)
Expansion included:
- The DPT building designed for production of bacterial vaccines (including a class 100,000 fermentation room).
- Piping was also installed for delivering chilled water, Dl water, WFI water at 95º C and compressed air for cleaning, rinsing and drying.
- A Center for Final Processing (CPFI) in which filling, Iyophilization, and packaging of the final products into vials and ampules is accomplished.
- Utility buildings for support of these activities which include a water treatment building which take city water and process it into deionized water.
- Buildings for chilled water and steam generation.
Orbital welding was specified:
Quality was a major consideration in building this facility since they wanted to comply with international standards in order to export their products. To be able to meet the new specifications, the contractor chose Arc Machines' orbital welding equipment including the Model 207 microprocessor-controlled power supply and Model 9-1500 fusion weld head. The WFI system was 316L stainless steel. Tubing sizes were 1/2" diameter with a 0.049" wall, and 1 and 1 - 1/2" diameters with wall thicknesses of 0.065 inch which is typical of pharmaceutical piping.
Results:
All welds were inspected on the OD and some were inspected in the ID with a borescope. All welds were required to be fully penetrated in the ID without excessive concavity or convexity of the weld bead, and visual evidence of oxidation was held to a minimum. A reject rate of less than 0.3% was achieved.
Summary:
Find out how using AMl's orbital welding equipment enabled Fiocruz the ability to produce in bulk quantities and to form potential partnerships with large multinational pharmaceutical companies to produce vaccines for worldwide distribution.
Reprinted from Welding & Metal Fabrication
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