THE SITUATION
The maintenance team at a large bakery need to complete a difficult welding job as part of planned repairs top to a flour silo. The work needed to be completed within a narrow and critical maintenance window. During an initial site visit arranged by HAYLEY DEXIS, experienced engineers from HAYLEY 247 DEXIS, confirmed that the 26-tonne silo was severely cracked in many places. This was causing excessive product leakage in a very confined ATEX area. As a result of these findings, a welding solution was discounted.
The OEM for the silo was unable to assist, owing to the impracticalities of the work required, while a ‘metal stitching’ solution was also cost-prohibitive for the customer.
THE SOLUTION
HAYLEY DEXIS invited technical experts from HENKEL to visit the bakery and investigate whether a LOCTITE® adhesive solution would be viable. At short notice, this was arranged and, following a thorough inspection of the application and the issues around the cracked silo, LOCTITE® 3478 Superior Metal was recommended. The customer agreed to proceed with this, and the product was ordered with a full work instruction also being provided for the on-site maintenance team. Following the required preparation, the maintenance engineers applied the adhesive to the exposed metal area and on to the metal plate, before these were applied to the cracked areas of the silo. The metal plates used in the repair work were 5mm thick stainless steel and covered each crack by 150mm each side, running the entire length of the affected area.
"THE SOLUTION WAS A COST-EFFECTIVE WAY TO RESOLVE A COMPLEX REPAIR REQUIREMENT."
THE RESULT
At the time of writing, the solution has been in-place for six-months. During the period, the customer has not reported any further problems with both the cracks that were repaired by the metal plates and LOCTITE® EA 3478, and with any new cracks forming in the flour silo. When compared to the welding repair option, deemed too unsafe and impractical to carry-out, the customer secured a £7000 cost-saving. When compared to the more expensive metal-stitching proposal, the customer made a saving of £15000 on the repairs. If the flour silo was out of action for any time outside of the planned maintenance window, the associated downtime costs would have been hugely significant.