Inventive High Pressure Water Jetting
Many innovative alternatives - a new approach to cleaning heat transfer equipment
Inventive High Pressure Water Jetting
Many innovative alternatives - a new approach to cleaning heat transfer equipment
Tube Tech International reduced a rival’s downtime estimate of 60 days to just 72 hours in one of the finest examples of its work. The contract won by Tube Tech was at a major oil refinery/chemicals manufacturing site in the Netherlands.
More than 200 tubes of a catalyst reactor were blocked with fused nickel. Other European based catalyst handling contractors had quoted unacceptable downtime estimates of between 60 and 120 days. The vertical reactor tubes, 10cm (2 inches) in diameter and 10 metres in length, were blocked with fused nickel catalyst. One of Europe ’s leading catalyst handling experts was working at a rate of just one tube per day using vacuum hoses and tickling rods from above and below. High pressure water jetting of the hardened mass blocking the tubes was not an option.
Tube Tech International proposed a faster and safer system of using multiple, extendable rotary drills with polishing heads in tandem with mechanical percussion and air blast. This solution had been successfully pioneered on other tubular reactors in the UK .
Tube Tech cleaned up to 40 tubes per day with this dry procedure. The polishing action of the drill heads meant there was no necessity for follow-up shot blasting.
Shot blasting can also be counterproductive as it is known to erode and etch the first few metres of the tubes’ internal surfaces. This can detrimentally provide a key for deposits and accelerate build-up for the future.
Tube Tech Managing Director Mike Watson said: “There were many advantages to using our own unique drilling system not least that we reduced downtime substantially.
Logistically we had to maintain a constant supply of spare cleaning tips in order to adapt to changes in deposit characteristics. Our team worked so quickly that we were manufacturing tips as fast as we were using them. Each day new supplies were flown or driven to the Netherlands from the UK .”
“Tube Tech pulled out all the stops in a highly critical situation. The reactor tubes were so severely blocked it was unclear how long it would have taken without Tube Tech’s intervention. The work was carried out safely, proactively and faster than expected.”
Clients can be contacted via Tube Tech for references.
