Background

The Mosier Hall Veterinary Medical Teaching Hospital is located on the Kansas State University campus in Manhattan Kansas. The University hired an Energy Services Company (ESCO) to implement energy savings projects. The ESCO reached out to EC Coatings, LLC to refurbish a six-cell 50’x30’x30’ cooling tower located behind Mosier Hall. This 31,200-MBH Cooling Tower required comprehensive refurbishment and relining due to significant deterioration and corrosion to the concrete basin and distribution system.  In the effort to rehabilitate the tower, EC Coatings used HVAC Armor Cooling Tower Restoration Coatings (CT) to allow expansion of chiller plant capacity while extending the life-cycle of the structure.

The Solution:  Basin Repair/Coating

Concrete Basin Repair

Existing compromises in concrete basin were evaluated based on size, and filled in with concrete and rebar when necessary. The concrete repairs were allowed to dry before mechanical abrasion to allow maximum adhesion of the coating systems.

Mechanical Preparation

All internal surfaces of the tank were prepared utilizing dry abrasive sand blasting in order to remove the existing contamination and prep the surface for the coating. Any minor holes found due to corrosion were repaired with additional concrete repair. Immediately after sand blasting all dust, residue and debris left on the surface was completely removed.

Coating Application

The base coating for concrete, BLOME EC 590 LTC Primer was applied.

During the application all crevices and deeply pitted surfaces were completely penetrated and coated with particular attention to edges, bolt heads, weld runs, etc. Crew utilized regular checks of wet thickness with a wet film thickness gauge to ensure the specified thickness was applied. The nominal DFT for the base coat of the system was 30 mils, the base coat was allowed 6 to 8 hours before the top coat application.

The top coat for concrete and all metal components was BLOME TL-40 S Medium Gray LTC. One coat was required to achieve a nominal specified thickness of 50 mils.

Summary of Solution

This rejuvenation system was able to significantly extend the life-cycle of the cooling tower, thereby delaying capital replacement costs. Furthermore, since the cooling tower now utilizes variable frequency drives on the fans, there is a significant energy savings component to this project.

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