The Grundfos CM 1-11 pump has been successfully underwent trial for the task of cleaning RMC vessel safely and quickly.
Lafarge Aggregates & Concrete recently acquired a pump from Grundfoss. The task was to clean the ready-mix concrete (RMC) vessel safely and quickly.
Concrete by nature will solidify and leaves deposition on the walls of mixing unit as well as its agitator blades during mixing operation. This deposition is progressive and needs to be removed every day, at the end of the work before starting the next batch. This, other wise would overload the agitator motor which in turn affects the speed of the agitator and thus the mixing of concrete.
The conventional system was to engage labour to chip out the deposited concrete from the vessel every day at the end of production so that vessel can be kept ready for the concrete production next day. This method was unsafe and ineffective apart being laborious.
When the customer approached with this unique issue, Grundfos immediately got into action to provide an effective solution associating itself with water jet gun supplier and proposed to conduct a trial at one of the sites to evaluate the results and then to convince the customer.
The solution
Grundfos conducted trial with a pump which was readily available in stock. A CM 1-11 model was chosen and bought a pressure hose and coordinated with spray gun supplier to provide his product for the trial to be conducted. An RMC unit in Bengaluru was identified for the trial and mobilised all materials at site and successful trial was conducted which was acknowledged by the local officials in the RMC.
The system was temporarily installed near the RMC unit and demonstration was conducted. Later, another demonstration was conducted at Lafarge?sone of sites in Mumbai which was acknowledged to be successful.
The solution apart being
effective was also safe in terms of operation and eliminated the laborious task that was previously involved. After this successful demo, the customer ordered out a system for continuous use in their Mumbai site which was executed through Grundfos? Mumbai distributor.
However, the pump model was changed to CR 1-19 which was found suitable for the application and permanent installation at site.
How it works
The high pressure pump connected with hydraulic hose pipe and the spray gun at the discharge end, draws water from the nearby source and an operator can hand hold the spray gun and safely operate it for removal of the concrete deposition without entering into the mixing unit. Pressure of 10-12 bar has been found to be effective in removing the concrete deposition.
The outcome
Earlier, the customer had used an imported high pressure cleaning system which was unsafe in terms of operation as it was producing 200 bar and was difficult to handled by the operators. The manually chipping out the deposition was found to be quite laborious and ineffective. They were looking for a system which will be safe as well as effective which this system proved to be.
Pump specifications
Model: CR 1-19
Motor: 0.55 kW
Pressure head: 11 bar
Flow: 1 cu m/hr