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Company Achieves Greater Oil Tanker Cleaning Efficiency During the last four years, BHP Petroleum has used Airloader Pumps for tank cleaning on its three offshore oil production facili- ties, Challis Venture, Jabiru Venture and Skua Venture in the Brain Industries undertook a new design with an increase in jet- pump suction airflow from 600 cu. ft. per minute to 900 cu. ft. per minute at up to 26 in. of mercury vacuum poten- tial. The pumping vessel was redesigned and the Timor Sea. The Airloader Pumps are manu- factured by Brain Industries Pty. Ltd., based in Sydney, Australia. Keith Hobbs, Brain's managing director, said, "Airloader Pumps are really packaged pneumatic conveying devices" and as such can far exceed what is normally expect- ed from regular pumps and pump- ing techniques. What this has meant to BHP Petroleum is that the company uti- lized a compact, intrinsically safe unit, capable of sucking up the heavy and abrasive viscous crude oil contaminated sand and rust scale deposits from between the ribs in the bottom of its tanks, and in one operation discharging it via pipeline, either to another tank or over the side to another vessel. The Airloader Pump is com- pressed air operated and has no electrics. It stays on deck with only the material suction hose descending down into the tank via the manway. Its powerful uplifting air velocity combined with high vacuum potential is reportedly capable of removing the worst material through an excess of 100 ft. of vertical suction lift into the pumping vessel at deck level. There is no need to high pressure waterjet the material prior to suck- ing it up. It will suction load for a set time before switching to pres- sure discharge. It is capable of dis- charging the material several thousands of feet via a four-in. pipeline; returning to suction mode after discharging for a set time. These suction and discharge times are adjusted according to tank depth, nature of material and discharge distance. Once set to give an optimum load and dis- charge cycle at the start of each job, the machine will continue to operate automatically thereafter. The particular mode of Airloader Pump used by BHP Petroleum until recently was of a design most suited to underground mining and tunnelling. "Although very suc- cessful for BHP" said Mr. Hobbs, "I definitely felt we could improve on its performance." Think Of It As The Strong, Silent Type Nelson Silencers Quietly Outperform The Competition. Circle 301 on Reader Service Card Quiet performance. It's the reason you buy a silencer. But when you buy Nelson silencers, you get so much more. Nelson silencers not only quietly outperform the competition, they outlast them. Our heavy duty aluminized steel construction and three step finishing process resists heat and corrosion, so Nelson silencers last longer and can operate at a maximum temperature of 1250° F. So Nelson silencers don't require costly metco or zinc coatings. - *> i i—i—i B v c "f fl 5 25 And Nelson silencers are smaller and lighter than £ 20 competitive silencers, so installation is easy and you save | 15 money on freight costs. 5 ——i—————— What's more. Nelson has an on-site, state-of-the-art 31.5 S3 125 250 500 IK 2K 4K 8K .. . . , r .... . ., , .. . octave Band center Frequency (Hz) acoustical test facility. We test our silencers on several different engines so you know you're getting a silencer that performs. No wonder Nelson silencers are the quietest in the industry. Unlike single-data line curves, which represent only one engine, the Nelson attenuation graph realistically depicts the range of attenuation achieved on various engines. The bottom line? When you buy a competitively priced Nelson silencer you get the one thing you need most. Sound results. Industries, Inc. NELSON DIVISION Exhaust & Filtration Systems 1801 U.S. Hwy. 51/138 P.O. Box 428 Stoughton, Wisconsin 53589-0428 U.S.A. Telephone 608-873-4200 Telefax 608-873-1532 November, 1996 119