Industrial Automation Magazine India

TubeMaster for Efficient Cleaning of Copper Pipes

Published on : Wednesday 10-07-2024

TubeMaster also efficiently removes stubborn limescale deposits in copper pipes of a shell-and-tube heat exchanger without causing damage.

The mycon TubeMaster process has been used for several years to clean shell-and-tube heat exchangers. TubeMaster can also clean pipes with extremely hard deposits, such as cracked sulfur residues in oil and gas production.

TubeMaster cleans so gently that it can also be used to remove hard crusts in copper pipes, such as limescale. In a shell-and-tube heat exchanger, 250 copper pipes with a diameter of 17 mm and a length of 2800 mm were installed. The pipes had limescale deposits up to 8 mm thick on their entire surface, making the heat exchanger non-functional. The new price of the heat exchanger is EUR 70,000; therefore, the customer prioritized the complete and non-destructive restoration of the heat exchanger's functionality.

The copper pipes were initially flushed with the mycon Mini-FluidMaster device using citric acid. An endoscopic inspection showed that only the relatively soft limescale deposits towards the center of the pipe could be removed. The extremely hard deposits, up to 4 mm thick, along the pipe wall remained completely intact, showing no signs of the citric acid flush.

The mycon TubeMaster process was then used. A specially designed hard blasting medium was selected as the operating material. The deposits were gradually abraded down to the metallic wall under alternating use of special blasting nozzles without damaging the pipes. The removal of small areas of extremely thin deposits was avoided to protect the internal pipe surfaces. The full functionality of the shell-and-tube heat exchanger was restored.

mycon GmbH, Germany. Email: [email protected]