Location: Cimenterie Nationale Cement Plant, Haiti
Product: PAS-75 Acoustic Cleaners
Principle: Primasonics International Limited (UK)

Problem: Material build up on silo walls, Silo ratholing

The company were experiencing severe material build up on the sides of their 6000 tonne cement silos. This was a continual, serious problem resulting Silo ratholing, especially in the adverse local weather conditions ranging from monsoon to extremely dry. It meant that they could not utilise the maximum capacity of these silos plus material discharge rates were poor.

Ricardo Corrales, Mec. Eng, Assistant to the Maintenance Manager visited the Primasonics website and discovered that Primasonics Acoustic Cleaners had been successfully employed to eliminate material build up on silo walls on a global basis. As requested, Ricardo supplied Primasonics with a dimensional drawing and completed a questionnaire which enabled them to select the most appropriate Primasonics Cleaner to provide a Silo ratholing solution.

The Solution

Primasonics provided Model PAS-75 acoustic cleaners, initially on a monthly rental basis to allow the company to fully evaluate the efficiency of these units in preventing material build up on silo walls. They also provided the company with all the necessary ancillary equipment and technical advice.

The Result

At the end of the agreed rental period Ricardo was delighted to report that the Primasonics acoustic cleaning system was operating very well in preventing material build up on silo walls. The General Manager of the Technical Department based in Colombia was also equally impressed with the performance of the Primasonics Acoustic Cleaners during his visit to site.

After a few weeks of operation of the acoustic cleaners, Primasonics received the following e-mail from Ricardo:

"Greetings from Haiti - for me it is a pleasure to communicate with you to inform you that because of the Primasonics Cleaners we have been able to withdraw an additional 1000 tonnes of cement which we could not do before we installed your cleaners."

The company have since purchased additional acoustic cleaners and all their cement silos are now free of Silo ratholing problems and are operating at maximum capacity and discharge rates.