Online cleaning of air coolers

A large steel-making complex asked CTP environnement to solve a recurring problem: because of an extremely dusty environment, the air side of air-cooled heat exchangers used for cooling oils become clogged and less effective.

Within the framework of a routine maintenance programme and with the aim of restoring an appropriate heat exchange for this kind of equipment, CTP environnement suggested cleaning the finned tubes using its Decamex^® process.

This process involves low-pressure cleaning, to ensure finned tubes protection. It is used on numerous clients’ sites and preserves the integrity of equipment. The process comprises two phases, performed simply from the underside of air cooled heat exchangers:

• Spraying of our Decamex^® product: dry cleaning, sprayed online
• Final air blowing: if necessary, to remove remaining chemicals

Developed in partnership with numerous clients to best meet their needs, this process has proven significant gains to the performance of the units with yields of above 15 % compared with conventional cleaning. These gains have been confirmed by airspeed checks conducted by our clients’ process engineers.