Sur­face Pro­tec­tion

Home / Ser­vices / Sur­face Pro­tec­tion

Reducing corrosion, improving functionality and extending asset life

Choosing the right protective coating and using the best surface preparation technique ensures better protection for our customers’ assets. This is where KAEFER’s expertise comes into play. As experts in insulation, we are perfectly positioned to provide services, solutions and innovations that not only protect the surfaces of industrial assets, but also increase their lifespan and efficiency.

SUR­FACE PRO­TEC­TION SER­VICES AT KAEFER:

Sur­face Pre­par­a­tion

Our service portfolio in metal and concrete surface preparation covers:

Ab­ras­ive blast­ing with a huge vari­ety of dif­fer­ent blast­ing me­dia and me­dia sizes

Ul­tra-high pres­sure wa­ter jet­ting with up to 40.000 psi

In­duct­ive Heat Sys­tem for re­mov­ing thick film coat­ings and pass­ive fire pro­tec­tion sys­tems from car­bon steel

Power and hand tool clean­ing

High pres­sure wa­ter clean­ing with up to 4.400 psi to re­move dirt, grease and oil

Abrasive blasting works
Secured abrasive blasting works at height

Coat­ing & Lin­ing

We specialise in providing innovative and customised solutions to ensure that coatings and linings meet your expectations for durability and protection. Our day-to-day focus is on providing technologically advanced and bespoke methods of protecting your assets, tailored to your specific requirements. We prioritise robustness, longevity, and cost effectiveness in all our solutions.

Three steps for durable coating solutions:

1. Ana­lysis of me­dia and en­vir­on­ment where the steel struc­ture is placed

2. Spe­cific­a­tion of ap­pro­pri­ate coat­ing sys­tem, in­clud­ing qual­ity of sur­face pre­par­a­tion and se­lec­tion of suit­able coat­ing pro­cess to suit spe­cific pro­ject de­mands

3. Ex­e­cu­tion of coat­ing ap­plic­a­tion by trained and skilled staff un­der su­per­vi­sion of ex­per­i­enced coat­ing in­spect­ors for strin­gent QA/​QC

Linings to successfully protect steel and concrete surfaces:

Epoxy lin­ings (stand­ard epoxy, phen­olic or no­volac ep­ox­ies), also re­in­forced with fibres and mats

Zinc silic­ate lin­ings

Vinylester lin­ings, also glass-flake an fibre re­in­forced

Rub­ber lin­ings: nat­ural and syn­thetic rub­ber, cold and hot vul­can­ised

Coating spray application
Coating inspection

Cor­ro­sion un­der In­su­la­tion

Cor­ro­sion un­der In­su­la­tion (CUI) is a threat to many in­dus­tries in a wide sense. If neg­lected, the cor­ro­sion pro­cess is mostly well hid­den un­der the in­su­la­tion sys­tem and be­comes only ob­vi­ous due to severe in­teg­rity fail­ures.

CUI occurs through penetration of water, moisture and contamination via:

  • Condensation (batch mode, pipes in the open → dew point during night)
  • External sources (rain, sprinkler system)

Un­like other cor­ro­sion threats, in­spec­tion be­comes the only bar­rier to CUI fail­ure – a job that in­spec­tion was never in­ten­ded for. Fur­ther­more, CUI can be very loc­al­ised. In other words, most of the equip­ment re­mains in good con­di­tion, which is why sample in­spec­tion is un­likely to give you the as­sur­ance you need. Highly re­li­able in­spec­tion is needed which to date is still costly peri­odic re­moval and re­in­state­ment of in­su­la­tion.

KAEFER’s Integrity CUI Services:

We at KAEFER have ex­tens­ive op­er­a­tional ex­per­i­ence with CUI as a fo­cus area. Our in­teg­rated skills can provide a com­plete ser­vice to help cli­ents achieve vis­ible, valu­able and cost-ef­fect­ive CUI con­trol at dif­fer­ent stages of the as­set li­fe­cycle. We provide con­sultancy and trades skills through to fully man­aged in­teg­rated in­teg­rity ser­vice con­tracts, which in­clude

  • Risk Based Inspection
  • Risk Based Coating Programs
  • CUI detection / screening technologies
  • Operations safety tools
  • R&D excellence
  • Benchmarking review & Review of internal guidance

We have de­veloped our own ap­proaches to man­age CUI, e.g. by ap­ply­ing our own coat­ing sys­tem spe­cific­a­tion guideline or by de­fin­ing best prac­tise in­su­la­tion sys­tem design to pre­vent wa­ter in­gress in the sys­tem and to pre­vent CUI.

Corrosion under insulation

KAEFER CUI Healthcheck:

The ‘KAE­FER CUI Healthcheck’ is a high-level bench­mark eval­u­ation of a cli­ent’s CUI con­trol ap­proach and in­volves 1-2 weeks work per­formed by Senior Level con­sult­ants. Be­ne­fits in­clude:

  • Quick, typically high-value for money, independent & friendly
  • Considers effectiveness and cost control
  • Performed by experienced multidiscipline personnel with operational experience
  • Effective and identifying major strengths and weaknesses
  • Raises CUI awareness
  • Recommends prioritised, high-value improvement areas

A series of CUI con­trol bench­mark­ing ques­tions are set against CUI con­trol scheme re­quire­ments and as­sessed against four key per­form­ance cat­egor­ies (Pro­cess, Or­gan­isa­tion, Tech­nical and Data). The stand­ards have been de­veloped based on ex­tens­ive ex­pert­ise and pub­lished good prac­tice within the In­dustry.  A low score in just one of these cat­egor­ies can sig­ni­fic­antly re­duce CUI con­trol ef­fect­ive­ness for some or all equip­ment, even with good per­form­ance in other areas.