The Customer

TI Tube Products of India, a leading industry of TI Group manufactures special steel tubes required for various applications.


The Problem

The factory is located at Avadi near Madras and has "Bell Annealing Furnaces, the neoprene seals of which are cooled by a water circuit which is recirculated through a cooling tower. The neoprene seals are meant for providing a seal to prevent the atmospheric air entering into the annealing area where an inert atmosphere is maintained by filling the annealing area with nitrogen gas. Unless properly cooled, the neoprene seals get burnt due to the high temperature (800-850°C) maintained in the annealing area. This will allow the air to pass in and oxidise the charge being annealed which would require reannealing.

Tube Products of India used raw water without treatment. Hard scale deposition in the heat transfer areas hindered proper cooling of the neoprene seals. The seals had to be changed 27 times during the year prior to the installation of COLLOID-A-TAON. (Le. Aug. '89 to July '90). This required reannealing the charge 27 times which increased the cost of operation of machinery.


The Solution

One COLLOID-A-TRON of size CAT 3" was installed in August 1990 at the delivery of the cooling water pump of the Bell Furnace cooling circuit.

After the installation of COLLOID-A-TRON, the performance was closely monitored. The raw water and the recirculating water was analysed regularly to check for scale formation. During the period of Sep '90-Aug '91 after installation of COLLOID-A-TRON, the replacement of neoprene seals came down to 6 and that too due to mechanical problem and ageing of the seal and not because of inadequate cooling. The circuit was inspected visually and was found to be free of scale.


The Saving

Since the installation of COLLOID-A-TAON,there has been no scale formation which saves the company the cost of replacement of neoprene seals, reannealing of charge, cost of descaling and power cost of operation of machinery for reannealing.