India’s largest EPC (energy, procurement and construction) conglomerate constructed a massive ship lift facility in Southern India, capable of lifting a ship of 200m length with a width of up to 43m. Essentially the ship lift is an enormous elevator used to raise ships out of the water to enable dry-dock onshore maintenance work to be completed. The continuous lifting and lowering means the ship lift platforms are continuously in the splash zone, and at risk of corrosion due to continued wetting with salt water combined with exposure to oxygen rich air.
Originally coated in 2011 by an different company, after six years’ service it was evident that recoating work was required. The job would require a host of technical and site management skills, and KCPL Corrocoat, out partners in India, were successful in securing the contract.
After some test procedures had been carried out, it was decided that vapour blasting was the best solution to adequately prepare the lift surfaces for coating and Polyglass Zipcoat was applied to achieve a DFT of 1000μm. Polyglass Zipcoat provides durable corrosion protection in aggressive atmospheric conditions and immersion environments. In total, around 1500m2 was blasted and coated throughout the project, and the team were very proud to complete the work on time.
The feedback from the client was extremely positive and the coating is performing as required in this testing splash zone environment, so much so that the client renewed the annual rate contract for another year.
