Sur­face Pro­tec­tion

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Mit­ig­at­ing cor­ro­sion, en­han­cing func­tion­al­ity, and ex­tend­ing as­set life

Se­lect­ing the suit­able coat­ing solu­tion, com­bined with the op­timal sub­strate pre­par­a­tion pro­cess as­sures su­per­ior pro­tec­tion of our cli­ent’s as­sets. That’s where KAEFER comes in. As spe­cial­ists in in­su­la­tion, we are ideally placed to de­liver ser­vices, solu­tions and ideas that not just pro­tect the sur­faces of in­dus­trial fa­cil­it­ies but ex­pand their lives and ef­fi­ciency as well.

SUR­FACE PRO­TEC­TION SER­VICES AT KAEFER:

Sur­face Pre­par­a­tion

Our service portfolio in metal and concrete surface preparation covers:

Ab­ras­ive blast­ing with a huge vari­ety of dif­fer­ent blast­ing me­dia and me­dia sizes

Ul­tra-high pres­sure wa­ter jet­ting with up to 40.000 psi

In­duct­ive Heat Sys­tem for re­mov­ing thick film coat­ings and pass­ive fire pro­tec­tion sys­tems from car­bon steel

Power and hand tool clean­ing

High pres­sure wa­ter clean­ing with up to 4.400 psi to re­move dirt, grease and oil

Coat­ing & Lin­ing

When it comes to en­sur­ing that coat­ings and lin­ings provide the dur­ab­il­ity and pro­tec­tion you ex­pect, we provide the in­nov­at­ive, tailor-made solu­tions you need. Tech­no­lo­gic­ally state-of-the-art as well as tailor-made solu­tions on how to pro­tect your as­sets ac­cord­ing to your de­mands are our daily busi­ness, tak­ing ro­bust­ness, dur­ab­il­ity and cost ef­fect­ive­ness into ac­count.

Three steps for durable coating solutions:

1.Ana­lysis of me­dia and en­vir­on­ment where the steel struc­ture is placed

2.Spe­cific­a­tion of ap­pro­pri­ate coat­ing sys­tem, in­clud­ing qual­ity of sur­face pre­par­a­tion and se­lec­tion of suit­able coat­ing pro­cess to suit spe­cific pro­ject de­mands

3.Ex­e­cu­tion of coat­ing ap­plic­a­tion by trained and skilled staff un­der su­per­vi­sion of ex­per­i­enced coat­ing in­spect­ors for strin­gent QA/​QC

Linings to successfully protect steel and concrete surfaces:

Epoxy lin­ings (stand­ard epoxy, phen­olic or no­volac ep­ox­ies), also re­in­forced with fibres and mats

Zinc silic­ate lin­ings

Vinylester lin­ings, also glass-flake an fibre re­in­forced

Rub­ber lin­ings: nat­ural and syn­thetic rub­ber, cold and hot vul­can­ised

Cor­ro­sion un­der In­su­la­tion

Cor­ro­sion un­der In­su­la­tion (CUI) is a threat to many in­dus­tries in a wide sense. If neg­lected, the cor­ro­sion pro­cess is mostly well hid­den un­der the in­su­la­tion sys­tem and be­comes only ob­vi­ous due to severe in­teg­rity fail­ures.

CUI occurs through penetration of water, moisture and contamination via:

  • Condensation (batch mode, pipes in the open → dew point during night)
  • External sources (rain, sprinkler system)

Un­like other cor­ro­sion threats, in­spec­tion be­comes the only bar­rier to CUI fail­ure – a job that in­spec­tion was never in­ten­ded for. Fur­ther­more, CUI can be very loc­al­ised. In other words, most of the equip­ment re­mains in good con­di­tion, which is why sample in­spec­tion is un­likely to give you the as­sur­ance you need. Highly re­li­able in­spec­tion is needed which to date is still costly peri­odic re­moval and re­in­state­ment of in­su­la­tion.

KAEFER’s Integrity CUI Services:

We at KAEFER have ex­tens­ive op­er­a­tional ex­per­i­ence with CUI as a fo­cus area. Our in­teg­rated skills can provide a com­plete ser­vice to help cli­ents achieve vis­ible, valu­able and cost-ef­fect­ive CUI con­trol at dif­fer­ent stages of the as­set li­fe­cycle. We provide con­sultancy and trades skills through to fully man­aged in­teg­rated in­teg­rity ser­vice con­tracts, which in­clude

  • Risk Based Inspection
  • Risk Based Coating Programs
  • CUI detection / screening technologies
  • Operations safety tools
  • R&D excellence
  • Benchmarking review & Review of internal guidance

We have de­veloped our own ap­proaches to man­age CUI, e.g. by ap­ply­ing our own coat­ing sys­tem spe­cific­a­tion guideline or by de­fin­ing best prac­tise in­su­la­tion sys­tem design to pre­vent wa­ter in­gress in the sys­tem and to pre­vent CUI.

KAEFER CUI Healthcheck:

The ‘KAE­FER CUI Healthcheck’ is a high-level bench­mark eval­u­ation of a cli­ent’s CUI con­trol ap­proach and in­volves 1-2 weeks work per­formed by Senior Level con­sult­ants. Be­ne­fits in­clude:

  • Quick, typically high-value for money, independent & friendly
  • Considers effectiveness and cost control
  • Performed by experienced multidiscipline personnel with operational experience
  • Effective and identifying major strengths and weaknesses
  • Raises CUI awareness
  • Recommends prioritised, high-value improvement areas

A series of CUI con­trol bench­mark­ing ques­tions are set against CUI con­trol scheme re­quire­ments and as­sessed against four key per­form­ance cat­egor­ies (Pro­cess, Or­gan­isa­tion, Tech­nical and Data). The stand­ards have been de­veloped based on ex­tens­ive ex­pert­ise and pub­lished good prac­tice within the In­dustry.  A low score in just one of these cat­egor­ies can sig­ni­fic­antly re­duce CUI con­trol ef­fect­ive­ness for some or all equip­ment, even with good per­form­ance in other areas.