They're special "slip on weldneck" flanges! Guaranteed to stop all bolt-up and gasket leakage issues.Heck, if you want, you don't even need to install the studs/nuts. Imagine the savings!
Now a bit of presuming: The piping is some flavor of alloy. That means an apprentice welder was not involved. A journeyman / master welder would not make any mistake like this. Thus, it was an "on purpose" weld job. I'm guessing someone was having a bad day on the job and decided that it would be his last, or someone about to retire, or someone doing it "exactly as the engineer told me to" just to prove his point. Does anyone know where these were taken? I've ruled out one refinery with a similar paint scheme already...
I knew a welder who hated the company he worked for and welded a plate in a pumpsuctionline and polished the line and painted it.
They searched for a week why the pump did'nt work.
I had a 2-inch threaded tee once that had a full-wall-thickness membrane over one of the outlets--the field guys just installed it without looking. Took days to find why the dump line didn't work.
