Sel­ec­ted references

Our references in tank cleaning

  • Pri­ma­ry clea­ning by means of a tank washing head
  • Suc­tion of sludge via a high-pres­su­re pump
  • Tre­at­ment of slud­ges via a mobi­le decan­ter sys­tem, water and oil pha­se were retur­ned to the plant
  • Fee­ding of the tank by means of nitrogen
  • Use of a com­bus­ti­on cham­ber - from our part­ner com­pa­ny SIS - to con­trol tank pres­su­res via appro­pria­te mea­su­re­ment tech­no­lo­gy of the mobi­le com­bus­ti­on cham­ber during the clea­ning process
  • Dis­po­sal of fil­ter cake via exter­nal ser­vice provider

Clea­ning of a com­ple­te tank shell up to a height of 21 m using a 2500 bar Mul­ti­wor­ker from Falch, moun­ted on the head of a teles­co­pic for­k­lift truck.

The­re was a gre­at deal of time pres­su­re in this pro­ject, as the com­pa­ny wan­ted to install a new tank flo­or after clea­ning the tank shell. Both the tank flo­or and the tank shell (up to a height of 2 m) were alre­a­dy in a clea­ned con­di­ti­on when the tank was han­ded over to SOYK GmbH for clea­ning of the enti­re wall.

  • The tank in ques­ti­on has a dia­me­ter of 35 m, a height of 21 m and thus a capa­ci­ty of 20,000 m³.
  • The­re was a seve­ral cen­ti­me­ter thick build-up of the pro­duct (hea­vy fuel oil / HOS) on the tank shell, which adhe­red stron­gly to the wall and was also very hea­vi­ly encrusted.
  • The tank shell was clea­ned using a teles­co­pic for­k­lift truck with a Falch Mul­ti­wor­ker 250 fit­ted with a rotor nozz­le (2,500 bar). This pro­ce­du­re was deter­mi­ned by SOYK GmbH to be the best pos­si­ble and most effec­ti­ve clea­ning method in this indi­vi­du­al case.
  • The sel­ec­ted method allo­wed the tank shell to be clea­ned very quick­ly and also had the advan­ta­ge that no peo­p­le had to work in the vici­ni­ty of the high-pres­su­re device. In addi­ti­on, this method meant that no per­son­nel were in the dan­ger zone of the flaking pro­duct. This was also an opti­mal solu­ti­on in terms of occu­pa­tio­nal safety.
  • Once the clea­ning work had been com­ple­ted, the pro­duct (gra­nu­lar solid) only had to be pushed tog­e­ther from the bot­tom of the tank within a day and then sent for pro­per dis­po­sal in the incinerator.
  • Final­ly, the bot­tom of the tank was clea­ned again with a 500 bar high-pres­su­re hot water unit and the resul­ting water was coll­ec­ted by a suction/flushing vehic­le and also dis­po­sed of pro­per­ly within the plant.
  • SOYK GmbH Indus­tri­al Ser­vices was able to hand over the com­ple­te­ly clea­ned tank to the ope­ra­tor within a very short time (2.5 weeks), so that the new tank bot­tom pla­tes can now be installed.

The tank has a tank cup with a depth of 3 m (outer dia­me­ter of the tank 36 m) and a hea­ting coil (DN 50), which was scrap­ped during the clea­ning of the tank. The stored pro­duct, vis­brea­k­er resi­due (hea­vy oil), was in a har­den­ed sta­te in the tank, as the hea­ting line had been out of ser­vice for a long time. The remai­ning resi­du­al pro­duct was cover­ed by a liquid pha­se con­sis­ting lar­ge­ly of rain­wa­ter, which had pre­vious­ly been remo­ved by a vacu­um truck.

Spe­ci­fi­cal­ly, SOYK GmbH pro­vi­ded the fol­lo­wing ser­vices as gene­ral contractor:

  • Due to the tech­ni­cal con­di­ti­ons of the plant, it was not pos­si­ble to com­ple­te­ly emp­ty the tank. The ope­ra­tor had stop­ped hea­ting the pro­duct and blin­ded it. The con­sis­ten­cy of the pro­duct resi­dues was pre­do­mi­nant­ly solid.
  • SOYK GmbH took over the com­ple­te clea­ning of the tank, which con­tai­ned pro­duct resi­dues up to 0.80 m thick.
  • Instal­la­ti­on of an auxi­lia­ry frame to sta­bi­li­ze the plan­ned ope­ning in the tank shell (inclu­ding sta­tic verification).
  • Inser­ti­on of a door sheet into the tank shell using a high-pres­su­re water jet (up to 3,000 bar).
  • Rem­oval of the pro­duct using an elec­tric mini excava­tor with an over­pres­su­re cabin (over­pres­su­re pro­vi­ded by a breathing air com­pres­sor and lifeline).
  • Pro­per dis­po­sal of approx. 689 tons of pro­duct (vis­brea­k­er residue)
  • Scrap­ping of the hea­ting lines and other fix­tures (rol­ler line, level gau­ge pipe, sound­ing pipe)
  • Fine clea­ning of the tank using a high-pres­su­re water jet (up to 3,000 bar).
  • Expert super­vi­si­on of the mea­su­re, per­for­mance of decla­ra­ti­on ana­ly­ses, orga­niza­ti­on of pro­per disposal.
  • Phy­si­cal sepa­ra­ti­on of the tank body from all inco­ming and out­go­ing pipes, clea­ning and scrap­ping of the dis­mant­led equipment.
  • Pre­pa­ra­ti­on of an indi­vi­du­al clea­ning concept
  • Pre­pa­ra­ti­on of the sur­face in the tank recep­ti­on area by means of inser­ting Stel­con and steel plates
  • Clea­ning of the cru­de oil tank by robot and suc­tion truck as well as a mobi­le com­bus­ti­on cham­ber of our part­ner com­pa­ny SIS GmbH
  • Pre­cis­i­on clea­ning with HD equip­ment and trai­ned per­son­nel in the tank

In a recent pro­ject, we took on the com­ple­te pro­ject plan­ning of a cru­de oil tank clea­ning sys­tem as gene­ral con­trac­tor. The first step was to crea­te an indi­vi­du­al clea­ning con­cept tail­o­red to the spe­ci­fic case at hand.
The resi­dues remai­ning in the tank after various rin­sing pro­ces­ses (sludge) are remo­ved by the SOYK GmbH clea­ning robot using our asso­cia­ted vacu­um truck and our ATEX screw pump (rough clea­ning).

SOYK GmbH has spe­cial clea­ning robots inclu­ding the asso­cia­ted con­trol unit and suc­tion trol­ley. In terms of occu­pa­tio­nal safe­ty, this offers the decisi­ve advan­ta­ge that no per­son­nel need to enter the tank during rough clea­ning (access). The clea­ning robot is inser­ted into the respec­ti­ve tank via an instal­led scaf­fol­ding ramp and a suf­fi­ci­ent­ly lar­ge man­ho­le (NW 600). The robot, on which seve­ral came­ras are moun­ted, is maneu­ver­ed in the tank with the aid of a joy­stick via the asso­cia­ted con­trol con­tai­ner. The ope­ra­ting per­son­nel obser­ve and con­trol the robot via a screen in the con­trol con­tai­ner. The robot is con­nec­ted via a suc­tion line to a suc­tion truck or our ATEX screw pump, which then feeds the dischar­ged pro­duct to the desi­gna­ted dis­po­sal point.

Any vapors gene­ra­ted by the clea­ning pro­cess using our RTC robot are safe­ly extra­c­ted and inci­ne­ra­ted by the par­al­lel ope­ra­ti­on of a com­bus­ti­on cham­ber.

After secu­ring the floa­ting roof (wed­ges from abo­ve and PEP sup­ports from below), the final fine clea­ning is car­ri­ed out manu­al­ly by per­son­nel using a high-pres­su­re water jet under respi­ra­to­ry protection.

Clea­ning of an oil tank using a high-pres­su­re washing head and mobi­le decan­ter sys­tem in com­bi­na­ti­on with degas­sing using a mobi­le com­bus­ti­on cham­ber as gene­ral con­trac­tor.

This tank was a fixed roof tank, built in 1979, with a dia­me­ter of 14.5 m, a height of 6 m, and a maxi­mum volu­me of 1,000 m³.

In addi­ti­on to other harmful gases (hydro­car­bons), the sedi­ment con­tai­ned signi­fi­cant amounts of hydro­gen sul­fi­de (H2S), among other things. The sedi­ment in the tank should be dis­sol­ved in a clo­sed sys­tem, dischar­ged, and treated/conditioned or sepa­ra­ted for pro­per dis­po­sal in order to keep the quan­ti­ties to be dis­po­sed of as low as pos­si­ble.

The sludge stored in the tank gene­ral­ly has a flash point of < 30 °C, which meant that the issue of explo­si­on pro­tec­tion had to be con­side­red in detail. The harmful gases pro­du­ced during the work were extra­c­ted from the tan­k’s working area and ren­de­red harm­less using a mobi­le com­bus­ti­on cham­ber sys­tem pro­vi­ded by our part­ner com­pa­ny, ETS Degas­sing GmbH. The use of the com­bus­ti­on cham­ber made it pos­si­ble to con­ti­nue the clea­ning pro­cess con­ti­nuous­ly and inde­pendent­ly of poten­ti­al mal­func­tions in the tan­k’s breathing gas sys­tem, thus kee­ping the dura­ti­on of the clea­ning work cor­re­spon­din­gly short. Fail­ures or pro­blems with the tan­k’s breathing gas sys­tem, which could lead to delays in the clea­ning pro­cess, were thus ruled out from the out­set.
The ope­ra­tor con­ti­nuous­ly sup­pli­ed nitro­gen to the tank. The com­bus­ti­on cham­ber was modi­fied to ensu­re opti­mi­zed con­trol beha­vi­or.

The gases and vapors released during the clea­ning pro­cess using a tank washing head were auto­ma­ti­cal­ly bur­ned in the com­bus­ti­on cham­ber in a pres­su­re-con­trol­led man­ner.

A tank washing head (TWK) fed by a high-pres­su­re pump (HDP) was inser­ted into the tank via a total of four tank roof con­nec­tions as work pro­gres­sed.

Clea­ning was car­ri­ed out using a mobi­le A1 decan­ter. This sys­tem was used to dis­sol­ve the sedi­ments with water and dischar­ge them in bat­ches using an ATEX pump.

The com­pac­ted sedi­ments were first remo­bi­li­zed, i.e., slur­ried and diluted. Using the high-pres­su­re water pump, hydrant water is fed into the tank via the nozz­les of the tank washing head and the sedi­ment is loo­se­ned in the respec­ti­ve working area of the rota­ting head.

The decan­ter sludge was then deto­xi­fied in various tre­at­ment steps with the addi­ti­on of che­mi­cals. Once the sedi­ment had been remo­ved, the tank was ope­ned and com­ple­te­ly degas­sed via the com­bus­ti­on cham­ber. After the com­pa­ny had car­ri­ed out release mea­su­re­ments, the flo­or and walls were tho­rough­ly clea­ned up to a height of 2 m using high-pres­su­re water (spray gun).

After the clea­ning work was com­ple­ted, SOYK GmbH car­ri­ed out various repair work on the tank.

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Management

SOYK GmbH
Alter Schul­weg 4
D-21385 Reh­lin­gen

Operational site

SOYK GmbH
Con­tai­ner­feld 493, Unit 1b
Lud­wigs­ha­fe­ner Str. 1
D-50389 Wes­se­ling

Contact

Pho­ne: +49 41 32 / 93 29 85
Fax: +49 41 32 / 93 27 15
E-Mail: info@soyk-gmbh.com