Case Study: Seawater Cooler Maintenance

Problem

A major Operator had an issue with the seawater cooling system on Installation, in that the inlet strainers had become heavily fouled with marine growths, especially shellfish such as crustacea & mollusca. This had reached such an extent that the seawater flow-rate was seriously impeded resulting in a dangerous reduction in cooling capacity. See the image below showing the inlet face of the strainer. HP jetting operations had been considered but the Operator was concerned that this would damage the internal fine-mesh structure of the strainer thus allow ingress of solid contaminants to the system.

Solution

Our Lancer SRC product has excellent dissolution activity on marine shells and also assists in the dispersion of protein matrices and algal slimes.

Working together with the appointed Contractor, AIC generated a work-scope to allow delivery of a dilution of Lancer SRC into this strainer module in a circulating loop configuration.

The contractor circulated the Lancer SRC dilution, at ambient temperature, at a steady rate for just over six hours. A final clean-water rinse rapidly and effectively flushed out any residual protein slime.

Results and Benefits

This application of Lancer SRC removed not only the shells but also the residual organics with extremely high efficiency, allowing the flow rate to be returned to design levels and eliminating danger overheating in down-line process modules.