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Cooling towers are critical to providing water to manufacturing processes, like this chemical plant located in the southern US.
The multi-cell cooling tower, standing 475 feet long and 50 feet wide and housing 15 mechanical draft cells, is important plant infrastructure. A recent inspection reported signs of deterioration caused by corrosion of the steel reinforcement. These included leaks, cracks and delaminated concrete.
Repairs to cooling tower concrete are typically completed during a plant-wide shut down. However, given Structural’s expertise, the project team was able to build a plan to complete the repairs with the cooling tower online. This unique approach was beneficial, saving the facility time and money, and maintained production.
Phase I
Starting with the basin walls, Structural completely removed the deteriorating concrete up to and behind the steel reinforcement. In preparation for concrete placement and to help integrate new concrete material with existing, mechanical anchors were installed.
Structural installed Structural Technologies Tstrata IRC™, a rapid curing, high-strength specialty concrete system. To prevent future corrosion of the steel reinforcement, the owner elected to also add cathodic protection to select walls of the cooling tower.
The Structural Technologies ElectrotechCPTM Impressed Current Cathodic Protection (ICCP) system will deliver long term protection to the cooling tower, which is located in a naturally corrosion environment.
The east and west walls were selected for cathodic protection system installation during phase I. The north and south walls had an upcoming planned expansion and were deferred to phase II.
Phase II
Seven years after phase I repairs on the east and west basin walls, the planned phase II repairs took place on the north and south walls. Like phase I, the north and south walls had severe symptoms of ongoing corrosion on the steel reinforcement, including cracking, failure of the protective coating, adhesion issues and delaminated concrete.
Prior to phase II, an examination of the phase I repairs took place, and the owner validated the benefits of the long-term protection that the ICCP system provided. Because of this, it was decided that the ElectrotechCPTM Impressed Current Cathodic Protection (ICCP) system would also be installed on the North and South walls.
For more information, please visit structural.net or call (877) 413-0615.
