Efficiency Improvement & Long-Term Corrosion Protection for Pump & Pumping System using High Performance Glass flake Coating
Kirloskar Corrocoat Private Limited
Your partner in Long-term Corrosion protection and Energy conservation.
“Traditional corrosion protection methods have drawbacks that are difficult to overcome. Fluiglide technology offers greater scope for corrosion protection and guarantees higher efficiency”
Theoretically, any corrosion process can be stopped or reduced to insignificant levels by application of five basic remedies. These are:
Though, all remedies should be given careful consideration, it is often found that the most practical and economical solution to a corrosion problem is coating.
The basic concept of applying a coating is that a film of material is placed over the 'corrodible' surface protecting that surface from corrosion by isolating it from the corrosive medium. In theory, if all corrosive ions are prevented from reaching the substrates, no deterioration will occur. However, in practice, it may not be possible to achieve an impermeable barrier.
It appears, therefore, that there are two ways of looking at the problem of utilizing coatings for corrosion protection. Either reduce permeation of corrosive ions to a level where corrosion is stopped or becomes insignificant, or use adequate systems with good topcoat barriers.
Kirloskar Corrocoat Technology?Operating principle:
The principle of Glass Flake coating is to provide a tortuous path through the resin binder so that corrosive ions travelling through the permeable binder must travel a greater distance. The longest path through the binder is achieved using a Glass flake of high aspect ratio.
Although, the tortuous path principle is probably the most important aspect of using flake type filler, other properties are imparted to a binder flake composite that are dependent upon the flake material used.
There are several materials, which are available in flake form and can be used to significant advantage as filler in an organic coating film. However, many of these have disadvantages in their own right along with specific advantages. The material that offers the best all-round properties is corrosion resistant glass.
Some of the advantages of Glass flake filled systems are:
We have already discussed the tortuous path. The coefficient of thermal expansion is similar because of the compound expansion between the resin with a higher expansion rate than that of steel and glass with a lower expansion rate, blended in the correct proportions.
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Energy Enhancement:
Efficiency in pump installations depends upon the design of the system, type of motor used, surface roughness and many other factors. Once a system has been installed, it is often difficult, if not impossible to redesign pipe layout or pump characteristics to improve efficiency.
Pumping costs are very high, any savings achieved by increasing efficiency are equally large; a saving of only one percent when evaluated over a ten-year period can represent a consider- able amount of money and quantum of energy.
In any pumping system, over the years the hydraulic passages of casing and impellers get damaged due to wear, tear and corrosion. Also the clearances in wear rings increases substantially. All these damages lead to head and flow losses, which ultimately lead to deterioration of hydraulic performance. Due to this deterioration of performance, power consumption increases, putting pressure on energy demand because of inefficient operation of pump. To keep the equipment efficient, frequent shutdown of plants is essential. However, these frequent shutdowns lead to production loss and lower utilization of scarce energy resources.?
By using coating systems along with standard engineering practices, one can restore the geometrical shapes, surface finish and original clearances, so that equipment can run efficiently once again, over a long period, consistently. This not only restores performance, but also results in a manifold increase in the life of the equipment.
We, Kirloskar Corrocoat Private Limited are a joint venture company between Kirloskar Brothers Limited, India and Corrocoat Ltd. U.K. The company is based in Pune, India. The company manufactures coatings in a state-of-the-art plant at Kirloskarvadi, Maharashtra.
The application of 'Fluiglide' system, a resinous surface coating specially developed by Corrocoat Ltd. UK, reduces fluid friction and micro turbulence in water transport system, thereby increasing efficiency of the pump, which results in reduction in power consumption. Over the years, the process has been used in many major water supply, cooling water and sewage systems world over.
Kirloskar Corrocoat Pvt Ltd. has been instrumental in refurbishing and applying these coating systems to many old inefficient pumps resulting in efficiency gain, averaging 4 - 8 points in the last 30 years. These coating systems have also been used on a large number of new pumps.?
The Fluiglide coating's effectiveness can be traced to two established qualities: the reduction of surface roughness and the hydrophobic nature of the surface. The surface roughness amplitude of Fluiglide coating is 0.08 microns. The third and extremely important established quality is the imperceptible hydrolysis and dissolution of the resin at the boundary layer. The latter property is observed as a difference in performance between resin types having both of the first two properties but differing entirely in the third. It is well known that roughness has substantial bearing on flow characteristics. A rough surface introducing micro or even macro turbulence and eddies in the boundary layer causes an increase in velocity gradient and effective reduction in cross-sectional area for laminar flow. The boundary layer creates the blockage in passage. With the thin layer of Coating, boundary layer is suppressed and the passage is more effective.
The use of the above-mentioned Glass flake coating systems is not for temporary repair, but is often a permanent solution by which not only are time and money saved, but the necessity for further replacement is also reduced. The composite coating system is efficiently used for internal coating of pipelines, thereby protecting them from erosion and corrosion and limiting the increase in frictional losses which normally puts pressure on energy requirements of pumps.
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