Ultrahigh-Pressure Waterjet system

CTC has extensive technical expertise with advanced coatings and coatings removal.  The project highlighted here deals with coatings removal using water-blasting technologies.

Water blasting uses the force of highly pressurized water to effectively strip a wide variety of organic coatings from surfaces.  At 25,000 pounds-per-square-inch of pressure, the force of the water leaving the blast nozzle is too great for a person to control by hand.  Therefore, Ultrahigh-Pressure Waterjet (UHPWJ) systems use robotic arms to hold the nozzle at the proper distance and angle from the surface that’s being stripped.  CTC was asked to determine if a manual UHPWJ system could be effective at removing paint and preparing surfaces of U.S. Army tracked-and-wheeled vehicles.

As part of its investigation, CTC designed and constructed a user-friendly, portable closed-looped UHPWJ system that uses water pressures up to 36,000 pounds-per-square-inch.  The system meets all National Emission Standards for Hazardous Air Pollutants and Control Techniques Guidelines and has been in use since 2001.

This system has been shown to eliminate hazardous airborne particulate from blasting operations and decrease solid waste by 90%. 

In addition, the automated UPHWJ system outperforms all prior processes.  At a pressure of approximately 30,000 pounds-per-square-inch, the automated UHPWJ technology removes polyurethane coatings from special hull treatment tiles at a rate of 270 square-feet-per-hour, a noticeable improvement over the prior removal rate of 12 square-feet-per-hour.

The CTC-developed Ultrahigh-Pressure Waterjet system shown here removes polyurethane coatings from special hull treatment tiles at an average rate of 270 square-feet-per-hour.  The prior removal rate was just 12 square-feet-per-hour.