Tough environment

The environment in most water treatment plants can be tough on equipment.  Often spray systems are exposed to the elements and the sites may be sparsely staffed or even completely unmanned.  This is a far cry from the nice warm, well-staffed factories in which most of our spray nozzles tank cleaning heads are deployed.  So consideration needs to be given to ensuring that the design of such systems is rugged enough to cope.

Materials of construction

In many cases the materials of construction will be the main consideration when trying to cope with tough environments.  High quality corrosion resistant stainless steels, like 316, are generally recommended.  Our storm tank cleaning heads were originally designed to cope with a marine environment so these are naturally able to survive very well in water treatment plants.

When it comes to plastics one needs to consider which grades will survive well with exposure to sunlight. Plastics like PVC tend to break down over time when exposed to UV from sunlight and so are generally not suitable for outdoor use.  Therefore, we will generally recommend different grades of plastic in these
environments.

Ease of maintenance

As water treatment plants are often in out-of-the way places and do not have the luxury of being attached to a workshop or an engineering department, consideration needs to be given to how a spray system will be maintained.  Getting engineers with specialist tools on site can be costly so, ideally, a spray system should be maintainable by non-specialist staff with basic tools as much as possible.

The StormBlaster tank cleaning machine is designed to be maintainable in the field without the use of special tools.  It can be stripped down and cleaned in under 15 minutes so returns to the factory for damage repairs are limited.  It is also designed to be a highly robust machine anyway meaning very often they work for many years without even needing any maintenance work.

The use of quick fit nozzle holders is another innovation that can be helpful when dealing with large arrays of nozzles.  The Uni-Spray adjustable nozzle holders allow for nozzle to be removed easily and for their direction of spray to be adjusted by 45 degrees in two dimensions.