The Sweet Spot: IWC’s New Pultruded GRP Cooling Tower Project

According to Bloomberg, Tanzania plans to more than double sugar output in the next three years. Currently, the country produces about 320,000 tonnes of sugar and with more land being set aside for growing cane and more mills starting production, Tanzania is set to become a net exporter of sugar by 2022. Industrial Water Cooling’s extensive sugar industry experience enables us to provide cutting edge, engineered cooling solutions to an industry which makes up a crucial part of Africa’s future – approximately 70% of the world’s sugar is produced from sugarcane.

Core products from Industrial Water Cooling include cooling towers, heat exchangers and chillers; along with their allied spares and services. Besides new builds, Industrial Water Cooling also undertakes off-crop cooling tower refurbishments and repacks as well as conducts complete cooling system audits and inspections.

Industrial Water Cooling recently completed and commissioned a 4-cell counter flow, pultruded glass reinforced plastic cooling tower for the Kagera Sugar Company in Tanzania. With the Kagera Sugar Company factory situated in a remote area, all the materials required for this project had to be containerised and transported by ship and road from South Africa to the site in Tanzania. Industrial Water Cooling provided the necessary site manager for the erection of the cooling tower – using local labour – and completed the work in five weeks.

Glass-reinforced plastic (GRP), is a composite material made of a plastic reinforced by fine fibres made of glass. It’s a modern material that has many advantages over traditional construction materials like concrete, steel or wood.

These include:

• Exceptional chemical and corrosion resistance;
• Estimated 50% reduction in erection time when compared to conventional concrete construction;
• Its light weight minimises foundation loads and allows for smaller cranes to be used during construction;
• Resistance to all types of aggressive water;
• Resistance to weather conditions;
• Inert to biological and micro-organism attack;
• Excellent life cycle cost; and
• Minimal maintenance.

Industrial Water Cooling’s pultruded GRP cooling towers all have the following standard features:

• An axial fan with either GRP or aluminium fan blades;
• A purpose made GRP fan stack comprising a bell inlet and fan ring;
• Carbon fibre composite drive shaft;
• Extruded PVC wave type drift eliminators which ensure drift losses do not exceed 0.02% of the recirculating water flow;
• Low pressure down spray nozzles specifically sized tot eh required flow rates;
• Various fill options dependant on water quality
  • Film pack (various flute sizes and materials) for clean to moderately dirty water,
  • Polypropylene trickle pack for dirty water, and
  • Splash grids for very dirty water.
• Roof access by means of a ladder or access staircase; and
• Internal access by means of a trapdoor in the roof deck.

IWC have been providing innovative and effective cooling solutions for over 30 years throughout Africa. The recently supplied pultruded GRP cooling tower for the Kagera Sugar Company will play a vital role in helping to grow Tanzania’s sugar sector.