The Challenge
- Tube Tech International (TTIL) was contracted by an international integrated energy and chemical company in South Africa to remove fouling from five of its furnaces.
- The firm had experienced a costly drop in performance due to severe fouling preventing the furnaces from reaching the required temperature.
- None of the units had been cleaned before, so traditional water jetting methods would have been time-consuming and insufficient.
- The solution was our robotic convection bank cleaning technology, which is globally proven to remove more fouling from heat transfer assets than any other cleaning technology on the market. We used a combination of our Flushbot system, for high pressure water jetting across the tubes, and our Lancebot technology to clean in between the tubes.
Solution
- The solution was our robotic convection bank cleaning technology, which is globally proven to remove more fouling from heat transfer assets than any other cleaning technology on the market. We used a combination of our Flushbot system, for high pressure water jetting across the tubes, and our Lancebot technology to clean in between the tubes.
- The three-day operation comprised of a four-strong TTI team per furnace, supported by additional local contractors. Throughout the process, our technicians ran tests to ensure the correct pressure was always used to avoid any damage to tubes or refractory.
- We successfully removed fouling from each furnace without the use of any chemicals, and in doing so restored near 100% heat duty. This optimised performance, allowing for the release of continuous energy savings.
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Tube Tech International is the heat exchanger cleaning specialist. If fouled heat exchangers are impacting your process performance, contact us to increase your throughput and profit today.