When the tankers arrive on the industrial tracks on the factory premises of Sasol Germany GmbH Herne, your freight has already travelled a great distance.
It was manufactured in the Sasol main factory in Secunda/South Africa, shipped from Durban to Rotterdam and offloaded once again onto the railroad for further processing in the Herne factory.
Nothing should go wrong there, not at the very last minute. When Sasol built a new unloading facility in Herne for this purpose, naturally the safety of the employees, the environment and the surrounding area was given the highest priority, but the economic aspect was given the second highest priority.
An RS innovation enables both priorities to be combined. TÜV requirement for a breakaway coupling During the construction of loading facilities for chemicals, the TÜV, as a standard requirement, defines two types of safety couplings for the hose connection between the tanker and the pump: a breakaway coupling that prevents leakages in case of an unintentional disconnect, and a dry coupling that prevents leakages from occurring during the operational necessary separation of both couplings halves during the normal coupling and decoupling process.
The problem: safety is indispensable but up until now it had a high price tag due to technical reasons, namely a flow cross-section that is low in comparison to the hose diameter in the couplings. The medium gets jammed at this ‘bottleneck’. The consequence: the loading times per wagon become longer and more expensive; the same is true of the loading station employees’ ‘idle times’.
The responsible product engineer at the Herne location, industrial engineer Torsten Wupper, consulted Peter Badners, department manager for hose technology at the technical wholesaler Schloemer, a company that has been consulting Sasol in Herne for more than 20 years in relation to hose and valve technology. As an RS Premium Partner, Mr Badners was able to offer the most suitable solution.
Offering more efficiency in the loading process, ABVL is the name of the latest product line of breakaway couplings with breaking pins from RS Seliger. This product line is based on the proven RS valve principle and was developed especially under economic aspects to optimise the pressure loss and to significantly improve the flow-through.
At the same time, the new breakaway coupling provides full functionality for its actual task: namely to minimise the effects of an industrial accident and to protect people and the environment from an unwanted leak of mediums.
Torsten Wupper is just as satisfied with the new installation as the employees at the unloading station. He said: “Instead of restricting the flow-through, we can now work at full capacity.”
This use is comprehensively described in the new RS Reference Brochure, Sasol, which can be obtained free of charge by contacting RS Roman Seliger Armaturenfabrik GmbH.
