Cleaning the packing areas on fishing vessels

Fish caught by New Zealand fleets during trips lasting several weeks is filleted, frozen and packed ready for the wholesalers while the boats are still at sea. Seawater at high pressure is used to keep the work areas clean, and the crew cannot afford downtime.

The cleaning systems originally incorporated electrically driven plunger pumps, but there were two problems.

Pump service life was short. Salt water is corrosive and can attack mechanical seals. And despite efforts to filter and clean the seawater, it still carried enough abrasive material to cause rapid seal wear and early failure of the seal-reliant plunger-type pumps.

Replacing the original pumps with Hydra-Cell G10 pumps cured the problem. Their design, which includes no cups, packings or seals, enables them to handle seawater with ease. Moreover the Hydra-Cell pump can conveniently be driven by a hydraulic motor. There was already plenty of hydraulic power available on board, and the high pumping efficiency of the Hydra-Cell means it needs only a small motor relative to performance.

That took care of the second issue, which had been potential safety hazard and the inconvenience of working with electric motors and connections in a wet environment.

On this application the G10 is delivering 7.7 gpm (29 l/min) of seawater at 870 psi (60 bar) pressure, and working reliably, with none of the difficulties experienced by the original pumps.

Model: G-10

Flow: 7.7 gpm (29 l/min)

Pressure: 870 psi (60 bar)

Liquids:

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