High Pressure Technology

— Company

• Editorial ................................... 1• Exhibition reviews ..................4• Special award for land

r ecycling ...................................4

— Markets + Products

• High production reliabili-ty in the manufacture of phosphates ...........................…1

• Fully Automated System for High- Pressure Reactor Cleaning in China… .................2

• JetPower480-VARIO – a Pump Unit of Many Talents ............. 3

• Reliable and High Efficient Pump Units for the Urea Industry ......................... 3

— URACA News

• Folk festival "Uracher Schäferlauf" ............4

• Next exhibitions .....................4• Baden Württemberg

Land Reuse Award ..................4

Special Price p. 4

Issue 2019

— Editorial — Topics — Markets + Products

Fully Automated System for High- Pressure Reactor Cleaning in China p. 3

Dear Reader,

Another year has flown by and 2019 was a year dominated by difficult economic situations across the globe. Topics such as Brexit, the US-China trade war, and the threat of a recession have been part of conversations all year long. At URACA, we are glad that we have been able to successfully navigate these difficult times. For this, we thank you, our loyal customers.

Even in these turbulent times, we at URACA continue to invest in our operations. For instance, we recently added new and more efficient manufacturing equipment. We look toward the future not with concern, but with optimism, and we look forward to working for the continued success of our customers. In our company’s 126th year, we have a positive outlook for the year 2020 and beyond.

I hope that our impressions make for informative reading, and can give you a closer look into what we do at URACA as we constantly strive to offer the best services and equipment.

I would like to thank you, our valued customers and partners around the globe, for the trust and confidence you have in us, and I look forward to our continued cooperation in the coming year. I wish you all a merry and blessed Christmas, happy and relaxing holidays, and all the best in the year to come.

Gunter Stöhr Managing Director

High production reliability in the manufacture of phosphatesKD626 for continuous delivery of diphosphate solution in the spray drying process

Phosphate powders are often used in food, pharmaceutical, and other indus-tries. These powders are produced from a phosphate solution with the help of spray or atomization drying. In order to generate the tiny droplets needed for the spray drying process, the liquid solution is forced through atomization nozzles at high pressure. This continuous process can only operate reliably if the high-pres-sure pump feeding the spray nozzles with solution is suitably designed.Therefore, the high-pressure pump is de-signed based on the process, the desired end product, and above all the physio-chemical properties of the solution or sus-pension used as feedstock.Thanks to many years of experience in the construction of pumps for hot and parti-cle-laden fluids, the KD626 pump unit is a tried-and-tested solution for these chal-lenging mediums. A proven, reliable, and long-lasting pump design, built to meet the needs of the customer and their pro-

cess, ensures a high level of production reliability. Continuous production, low service costs and high availability are the operator's reward.The challenges of pumping a diphos-phate solution at approx. 100 bar are not insignificant: if the medium tempera-ture drops, the solution tends to crystal-lize. The resulting particles can damage not only the pump and spray drying sys-tem; they could also endanger the entire process. For this reason, it is necessary to prevent the medium from cooling dur-ing the pumping process, and to avoid temperature shocks. To achieve this, the high-pressure pump is designed with heat-ing passages in the stuffing box and valve block, along with a temperature monitor-ing system. Reliability is further enhanced by adding a synchronized injection pump to the main process pump. The injection pump prevents the pumped medium from penetrating the plunger seal during opera-tion, and flushes the sealing surfaces.

Schematic diagram of a spray drying process

The all-rounder p. 3Schäferlauf p. 4 Easy to maintain p. 3

URACA Impression 2019Page 2

— Markets + Products — Markets + Products

Reactors used for producing plastics such as PVC or PU have integrated agitators, and ideally should be cleaned after every batch. For a plant with over 25 re-actors, manual cleaning would be a time consuming and dangerous job. That’s why a large plastics manu-facturer in China asked URACA to establish all their facilities with fully automatic high-pressure clean-ing systems. Over 20 positioning lances, several hose reel systems, and several high-pressure pump units were installed, ensuring both new and existing pro-duction facilities were optimized using high-pres-sure cleaning.

The addition of stuffing box flushing also prevents depos-

its from forming in the low-pressure area of the plunger seal.

These measures significantly extend the service life of seals and guide ele-

ments, which enables the pump to have a high lev-el of availability.Because the end product is used in the food indus-try, special care needs to be taken in selecting ma-terials for the pump. For this reason, only FDA ap-proved sealing materials are used in the wetted parts of the pumpTo meet the space constraints at the customer’s site, the pump skid uses a compact layout, includ-ing a vertical motor with helical bevel gear drive. In this way, the customer receives a pump unit that incorporates a proven design, but is also de-veloped to meet their specific needs. Of course, with quality and reliability as standard.

The advantages of turn-key reactor cleaning systems are obvious: they can be centrally controlled and improve plant productivity as well as working conditions for plant personnel.

Fully Automated System for High- Pressure Reactor Cleaning in China

Pump unit KD626 with injection pump P3-10, bevel-helical gear

and vertical motor.

buildup. Three different types of “parking garage” are available; the simplest of these simply holds the TWK as previously described. A second option has a gastight seal while the TWK is in its parked position, ensuring the reactor is sealed during production, while a third option maintains a gastight seal even during cleaning operations.The entire cleaning system is designed so it can be monitored and controlled from a central con-trol room, alongside the production process. When a reactor is designated for cleaning through the central control system, valves are automatically

switched to initiate the high-pres-sure cleaning process. Centrally in-stalled pump units (model RS724E-Ex/520) and a high-pressure piping system at site supply 170 liters of water per minute to each cleaning lance, at a pressure of 520 bar.This system is specifically designed to meet the needs of the applica-tion: it enables regular cleaning of the reactors immediately after eve-ry charge. The plastics producer is able to adjust the cleaning cycles at any time through their central control system, in order to keep up with changing production pro-cesses. Our fully automated clean-ing system benefits the operator

not only though reduced downtime for cleaning, but also through improved product quality thanks to more frequent cleaning. The ability to carry out cleaning operations automatically through a cen-tral control system improves conditions for plant personnel in accordance with the safety guide-lines. The need for hazardous work inside the reac-tors is eliminated. Thanks to URACA’s decades of experience, many positive references and quality “Made in Germa-ny”, the Chinese plastics producer decided to or-der a modern, fully automated cleaning system as a package from URACA.

A key feature of these systems is flexibility for the end-user: cleaning positions can be defined, used, and adjusted at will. This means positions along the cleaning lances’ 5m stroke can be precisely set at site, as well as continuous optimization and adapta-tion to changing cleaning needs.Additionally, the systems can be fitted with differ-ent “parking garages” according to the application. The “parking garage” sits on top of the reactor flange and holds the tank cleaning head (TWK) while the reactor is in use, ensuring the cleaning head is kept away from the product. The parking garage is al-so fitted with a spray ring, which removes residue from the TWK after each cleaning cycle, preventing

— Markets + Products

— Markets + Products

Reliable and High Efficient Pump Units for the Urea Industry

Ready for anything – this is the advantage offered by the URACA JetPower 480-VARIO. That’s because the

unit is able to tackle a wide range of changing demands, without needing any modification. Thanks to its excep-

tional flexibility, this powerful 480 kW unit is suitable not just for industrial and contract cleaning, but also for surface

rehabilitation. The key to this flexibility is automatic adjust-ment to the demands of the tools in use. The unit offers the ability to run virtually any tool, from simple hand tools to hy-drodemolition robots, efficiently with a single machine, with-out the need for modifications. This allows for big jobs, such as concrete demolition or large vessel cleaning, and any associ-ated tasks with a handheld gun to be carried out in rapid suc-cession.

The unit is easy to operate, and doesn’t require pre-adjust-ment of the flow rate. Simply set the required pressure via a user-friendly control system, and the unit quickly responds to adjust output to deliver the pressure to the selected tool. A color display, providing important information at-a-glance, completes the intuitive “Uraca Control” system. The result is the ability to quickly switch between different high-pressure applications while maintaining energy-efficient operation.

JetPower480-VARIO a Pump Unit of Many Talents

High pressure cleaning unit JetPower480-Vario with integrated automatic transmission

Drive components of JetPower480-Vario

High pressure pump P4-70 as a part of JetPower480-Vario

A flexible high-pressure pump unit for virtually every application: a new frontier in indus-

trial cleaning!

The pump is skid mounted, complete with all drive com-ponents, and is powered by a diesel engine. The engine is environmentally friendly and in accordance with the current TIER V emissions standards. Fuel consumption is also minimized via an automatic transmission that can shift under load, ensuring efficient operation across a range of operating conditions. The complete unit can be truck- or container mounted for mobility. All skid-mount-ed water and diesel tanks are sized accordingly for mobile operation.

The advantages are clear – for example, a single pump unit rated at 1000 bar is ready to tackle jobs with flow require-ments ranging from 16 up to 283 l/min, without the need to change any components or employ energy-wasting de-vices. This easy to use flexibility means an entire job site can be served by a single pump capable of efficiently tack-ling jobs both big and small.

URACA continues to be customers’ first choice for ammonia and carbamate pumps for the Urea industry. The advantages of our pump units provide a lot of benefits to the end users, which are primary keys of our success.

Based on several features, for example the compact mo-tor-pump assembly, which enables the installation of the pump unit in an existing space, which is very often lim-ited. One of the key features of the pump itself are the spring loaded stuffing boxes for liquid ammonia and car-bamate, which gives a huge benefit to the operating stuff of the pump unit.The springs continuously maintain the proper preload on the packing rings, eliminating the need for manual adjust-ments – a common cause of premature packing failure. Often, manually adjusted stuffing boxes are overtight-ened, resulting in increased wear and damage to seals and plungers. Together with a hard-metal coated plunger, the spring-loaded stuffing boxes have a greatly increased oper-ating life, and are virtually maintenance-free.

such as suction and discharge piping. This simplifies main-tenance, reducing turnaround time and cost. Such ben-

efits together with the high efficiency of the pump units will lead to very low lifecycle

costs for many decades. Thanks to these technical details and unique features,

URACA pumps are world leaders in this market, providing dependa-ble performance in Urea plants around the globe.

Trapezoidal gaskets on the pump valves prevent dam-age such as washouts of O-ring seals, leading to a virtually unlimited lifespan for the valve body. The design of the tandem valves’ seats, along with valve plates using specialized designs and materi-als, further reduce wear and also significantly reduce the noise emissions.A special design for the pump bridge, combined with flex-ible plunger couplings, en-sures a perfect alignment of stuffing box internals at all times – especially when using long stuffing boxes. Addition-ally, all valves and stuffing boxes can be removed individually, with-out dismantling other components,

Publisher: URACA GmbH & Co. KGSirchinger Str. 1572574 Bad Urach Phone +49 7125 133-0 info@uraca.de www.uraca.com

Responsible: Gunter Stöhr

Editorial: Werner Stiefel

Print: Offizin Scheufele, Stuttgart

Photos:Uraca, Bad Urach/Uwe Hihn, Chemac

Imprint

Page 4

www.uraca.com

URACA Impression 2019

— Bad Urach

Baden Württemberg Land Reuse Award 2019

— Company

— Company

On February 2, 2019, URACA was awarded the 2019 Baden Wuerttemberg Land Re-use Award in recognition of recently completed renovations and upgrades at the Uraca head-quarters in Bad Urach.

The project was completed with the co-operation of local government author-ities, Fritz Engineering and Uraca’s ar-chitects Hank & Wirth. The upgrades and modifications required teamwork to ensure the required results allow-ing Uraca to increase production capac-ity while improving area flood control measures and environmental sustain-ability.

Despite some difficult and challenging terrain in the nar-row Erms River Valley, flanked on two sides by two major roadways, the work was completed without disruption to day to day operations. The project was noted for imple-menting state of the art construction methods used to maximize benefits to URACA as well as meeting stringent local flood control requirements. Thus, the project was al-so a major benefit to the city of Bad Urach and the envi-ronment. As part of the project, the existing hydroelectric power plant was also upgraded including a new fish “by-pass” which eliminated any impact to local wildlife.The Award recognizes Uraca’s commitment and ability, as a mid-sized industrial company, to invest in projects that can both benefit the environment and its business resulting in more opportunity for the company , employees and local in-habitants. The project is an outstanding example of how ar-chitectural, environmental, and economical objectives can be completed in unison and harmony.

Originally a trade meeting for the shepherds of the Swabian Alps, the Ura-cher Schäferlauf (Shepherd’s Run) has grown into the largest folk festival in the region, garnering national and international recognition. The formalities begin with the sheperds assembling to discuss any and all issues affecting their trade, which are then ruled over by the “Sheperds Court”. While formal-ities of traditional meetings are still observed, the key event is a footrace between young shepherds across a field, for prizes and glory. The event also includes a traditional parade, herding competition, a stage play, folk dance groups and music. In 2018, the UNESCO commission recognized the Schäfer-lauf as an intangible cultural heritage. The Schäferlauf has been run every two years since 1723, with the next scheduled for July 25, 2021.

Further information under:https://www.badurach-schaeferlauf.de/der-schaeferlauf

A bird's eye view of the newly structured URACA company premises

Uracher Schäferlauf The 144th Uracher Schäferlauf (July 19-22, 2019): A World-Renowned Festival in Bad Urach

Sewer cleaning Customer Event Germany, February 20-22ChemTECH: Mumbai, India February 20-23IFAT Eurasia: Istanbul, Turkey March 28-30bauma: Munich, Germany April 8-14

Fertilizer Seminar: San Antonio, Texas, USA – April 15-19RoKaTech: Kassel, Germany May 8-10PCV: Moscow, Russia October 22-24

Trade shows, conferences, and customer-specific events were a fundamental part of URACA’s global presence in 2019:

A Global Presence for all Product Lines

In the coming year, we look forward to seeing you at our stand at the IFAT 2020 from May 4-8 in Munich, as well as other events around the world.