ARMORTHANE CASE STUDY: CONCRETE SEWAGE TANK LINING
How ArmorThane’s Polyurea Spray Elastomer Coatings Function as High-Performance Concrete Liners
PROJECT OVERVIEW: CORROSION
PROTECTION FOR EFFLUENT STORAGE
A client operating a water treatment plant located in the Southeastern United States sought ArmorThane’s help to protect their concrete sewage tanks with our polyurea concrete tank liners. Our client was developing new infrastructure that included effluent tanks – the containers responsible for the short-term storage of liquid wastes. By virtue of their role as containers for hazardous materials, their tanks would be in danger of acute and long-term damage from corrosive substances such as hydrogen sulfide and sulfuric acid if left unprotected. So to protect against corrosive chemicals and mitigate other chemical and mechanical risk factors, our coatings were applied in several layers proceeding a meticulous surface preparation regimen. The result was a high-quality tank lining system built from a combination of several of our most successful coatings products.
THE APPLICATION PROCESS
Our work began with a series of steps dedicated to preparing the surface for liner installation, starting with the application of a fairing coat called Flexcrete. The fairing coat was used to modify the tank’s surface profile to facilitate better adhesion preceding the application of our ArmorSeal surface primer – ArmorThane’s damp-tolerant, roll-on primer coating. In parallel, local conditions were carefully monitored in preparation for liner application; relative humidity, dew point, and air temperature can all influence application procedures and inform our best practices for each project. The phase following surface preparation was to apply the first two of three total coats of our ArmorLiner coating in contrasting colors. Between these first two coats and the third and final layer, we used specialized combs to carefully guide membrane formation and ensure the correct final thickness was achieved. We subsequently applied the third and final layer of ArmorLiner, which was left to cure, before then assessing the quality of the resulting liner and correcting for any imperfections using spark testing and a suite of standard protocols for evaluating polyurea coatings.
