- To get rid of the bivalve squatters Tube Tech used an advanced form of darting technique in the 8,000 tubes of the turbine condenser.
- And its teams have also sped up cleaning during the five occasions at the site, reducing the cleaning time from an initial two days to under 14 hours on their most recent visit.
Condenser Cleaned by DarTT – Tenacious Mussels Removed
8000 turbine condenser tubes cleaned in under 14 hours
- The mussels which find their way into the condensers at Waste to Energy sites find conditions perfect for breeding.
- Water jetting the tenacious molluscs to get them to loosen their grip from the tube walls proved too much for traditional methods.
- At the same time completing cleaning as fast as possible is also a major requirement for this site which can supply up to 19MW of electricity to the National Grid.
“A major way in which our system scores over traditional methods is that we guarantee that the tubes will be cleaned all the way through to the end which involves multiple systems including Tube Tech’s darTT cleaners to remove thin tenacious scale, Rotaflex to remove very thick scale and WysperflexT to unblock tubes.
The SITA Production Manager said: “We had tried conventional jetting some time ago but the quality was just not up to what we wanted. It certainly did not get rid of the mussel growth. Time is always the greatest issue for us and Tube Tech has been continually managing to reduce the time the project takes on each and every occasion.” He added: “The last time Tube Tech was on site, their team was out in record time, which is the most important aspect for us.”
