CHILE – capacity increase drinking water clarification

Background

At the beginning of 2011, ENEXIO Water Technologies was contacted by a customer to provide information regarding TUBEdek® FS 41.50 KTW. The costumer is operating three circular water potabilisation plants in Chile and was seeking a capacity upgrade. Each tank has a diameter of 20m and is divided into 16 “cake segments” structured by overflow weirs. The center houses polymer addition and mixing. All tanks have circular scrapers.

Originally, all three tanks were supposed to be upgraded with a competing product. However, this product required a support structure that could only be anchored on the outside walls. This block support would have been expensive and laborious to install.

At this point in time, the customer had already upgraded one tank with the competing product but was looking for a better option to upgrade the other two tanks.

Design

What next? Designing a new support structure suitable for our TUBEdek® 41.50? Modifying our TUBEdek® KLP 638 to fit the already existing support structure?

Neither of these options would have been in the best interest of our customer. However, is a support structure necessary at all? Because our lamellas are made out of polypropylene (PP) they are slightly lighter than water. Thus, they are floating and can be installed with no support structure. The competitive product, made out of PVC, is much heavier than water and sinks. Therefore, it needs a support structure.

The solution was: Assembling TUBEdek® to cake-shaped modules and arranging the edges under the launders, thus positioning them correctly.

Operation

The costumer assembled 16 „cake segments“ on-site, installing them with the edges under overflow weirs. The media floats and is held under water by the weirs. It is also attached to the weirs by a rope. When emptying the water, the modules settle on the floor of the tank. When refilling the tanks, the modules are brought back and fixed to their preassigned position.

The TUBEdek® modules were installed during the regular operation of the tank. Meanwhile, the customer upgraded the third tank with our solution as well.
By installing the modules on-site, transportation costs and logistic expenses could be saved.

Conclusion

• A solution specifically tailored to on-site conditions
• Significant cost savings through omitting the support structure, installing on-site, and cost-efficient transport
• No losses due to shutdown during the installation