Maximum Productivity Minimum Downtime for LDPE Unit
Our client was experiencing scale build up along the inner tube walls of the inter stage cooler which was reducing heat transfer efficiency. Previously when they cleaned the unit, the client was required to subcontract a large number of personnel to disassemble the inter stage cooler, requiring extensive scaffolding work to perform the tedious mechanical activity of opening each tubular to perform conventional 20,000 PSI hydro blasting methods. This required an eight-day shutdown to remove 56 short radius elbows in order to clean the 42 tubulars individually.
The client sought to find a safer, faster, and less labor-intensive cleaning solution. They had utilized several contractors and cleaning methods over the years until they were introduced to the Hydrokinetics cleaning method. Our patented Hydrokinetics cleaning method significantly reduced the total downtime from 8 days to just 4 total days from stop to start. Plus, we eliminated much of the mechanical and scaffolding work required to perform this job previously. This saved not only time but manpower hours and cost due to the fact that our process can navigate through multiple bends and turns required for this job only required the removal of each of the inlet and outlet elbows.
In addition to saving massive downtime the client was extremely happy with the quality of cleaning and the safe manner in which we operate. The client reports that the Inter Stage Cooler operates at optimum cooling performance, and their LDPE units are now able to remain in service for longer periods and are taken out of service for cleaning only once or twice a year and during LDPE Unit shutdown, the cleaning of the inter stage coolers are no longer considered critical path activities.
