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The
way the natives tell it, it was a simple case of what worked best.
And at Copperweld Steel, Warren, Ohio, a rotating, rope-type waste
oil recovery system was literally running rings around its belt
skimmer counterparts.
The
saga of Copperweld's black lagoon dates back to 1980 when the steelmaker
installed a pair of belt skimmers at the discharge mouth of its
one acre primary and secondary retention ponds. Along with that,
they also added a Brill(tm) Model 6V oil recovery system supplied
by Oil Skimmers, Inc., Cleveland, on the leeward shore of the main
five-acre lagoon. Its mission? Pick up any oil which had escaped
the belt skimmers. As it turned out, however, most of the oil wound
up being collected by the Model 6V.
"Our
problems with the belt skimmers were primarily mechanical,"
says George Behnke, project manager at Copperweld. "Debris
such as sticks, rubbish and even an occasional board were being
drawn in, ripping the belt and sometimes breaking the chain."
To
protect these components against such a fate, Copperweld installed
a screen in front of the intake. The remedy came at a price, however.
The screen had to be cleaned daily. If not, debris would build up,
forming a dam that would prevent the surface oil from entering the
belt skimmer.
After
about four months, the screen was removed and Copperweld's maintenance
crew went back to its former routine, which involved replacing belts
about every two months and periodically repairing chains. In contrast,
the only maintenance required by the Model 6V during its three years
of operation was the replacement of six tubes.
Sold
on the tube approach, Copperweld invested less than $10,000 in a
pair of units that assumed oil recovery responsibility in its primary
and secondary lagoons from the belt-based systems. In addition,
the steelmaker installed a third unit above a 20 ft. wide by 14
ft. long receiving well in the pump house. Its goal is to skim off
any oil before the water is transported back into the rolling mill
or to the boiler house.
Finally,
to keep the oil flowing freely in even the coldest weather, Copperweld's
engineers "antifreezed" the two new outdoor units. An
infrared heat lamp was installed at the end of the boom to keep
the 60 ft. long, polyurethane collector tube pliable, and the length
of the aluminum boom was heat-traced and insulated to insure a steady
gravity flow of collected oil to a 2,000-gal holding tank.
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