Seawater cooled condenser tube cleaning with SSM projectiles

The project

During a scheduled outage at a salt processing plant in the northern Netherlands, two Goodway Benelux project engineers supported the contractor with cleaning the primary seawater‑cooled condenser. The unit contains approximately 5,500 titanium-grade tubes and was heavily fouled with biological and marine deposits, along with a hardened calcium carbonate scale layer.

The challenge

The condenser had not been thoroughly cleaned for several years, allowing scale to accumulate and harden due to the seawater properties. The customer opted for a mechanical cleaning using specialized SSM projectiles designed for hardened deposits. Because the scale thickness was unknown and the fouling severe, Goodway Benelux recommended a two‑pass cleaning with different projectile sizes to remove the deposits gradually.

The solution

All projectiles were fired through the tubes, successfully removing the biological and marine fouling, and a part of the scale deposits. Post‑cleaning inspection showed that approximately 70-75% of the total deposits were removed, leaving only the hardest scale layers. To evaluate further cleaning potential, the customer agreed to test Goodway® ScaleBreak‑MP liquid descaler. One tube was submerged halfway in ScaleBreak‑MP for roughly six hours. The results were highly positive: all remaining scale in the treated section was fully dissolved. This confirmed that future cleanings should incorporate ScaleBreak‑MP to restore the tubes to optimal condition.

The customer had also installed a Taprogge automatic ball cleaning system and initially expected it to clean the tubes in their current, heavily fouled condition. However, these systems are not designed for corrective cleaning. They function as preventive maintenance systems, helping to keep tubes cleaner over time and reducing the frequency of mechanical cleanings. Even with such a system in place, mechanical cleaning remains necessary every 1-2 years to maintain optimal tube condition and prevent the formation of hard deposits.

Summary

• On‑site support by Goodway® experts to assist and train the contractor, perform inspections, and advise on preventive maintenance strategy
• Two‑pass mechanical cleaning with different projectile sizes, removing roughly 70–75% of deposits
• Additional ScaleBreak‑MP test confirming full removal of hardened scale and enabling optimized cleaning for future outages