Toshniwal Vacuum Pump Case Study for Vacuum Infusion in Ship-building

Client: Naval Ship Builder

The Client in this case is a major Shipbuilder in India which has been building full-metal bodied ships for the Indian Navy. In a push towards modernization and a requirement to meet international standards, the company invested in R&D to fabricate Composite Material Ship Hulls. Their efforts were paid off when the navy granted them the order to build the first indigenous composite material Ship.

Application: Vacuum Infusion

Reinforcement material like fiberglass is laid over a mould and sealed for a vacuum with inlet pathways for the resin to flow through from one side and Vacuum suction outlet at the other side. Using a Vacuum pump, the setup is evacuated to around 10-50 mbar pressure. Once the pressure is brought down to required levels in the mould setup, the valve connecting to the resin reservoir is opened and the vacuum automatically forces the resin to flow through and occupy the entire mould setup. Care is taken that no air pockets exist in the filled resin by modulating the vacuum pump. Once the resin fills the entire mould setup and all air pockets are removed, the vacuum suction is closed off and the resin is allowed to rest for 12 to 36 hours.

Client Problem: Problems with existing setup before Toshniwal Engineers entered the picture

The Client was using a Double stage Imported Rotary vane pump which was causing a lot of vaporization of resin and Oil throw from pump exhaust. Naturally, the client was not happy with this as their end product of the Vacuum Infusion Process (Set Resin) did not pass the quality checks and their pump was suffering from oil throw and maintenance issues.

The Toshniwal Solution:

Once the client reached out to us in Toshniwal, we had our experienced vacuum engineers visit their site and study the application thoroughly. Based on their findings, our engineers designed and recommended a custom system having a Toshniwal TMS Series pump coupled with a Buffer tank, Vacuum Switches, Running timer, and Control Panel setup. This resulted in repeatable uniformity in the set resin, no porosity, and a very clean and reliable vacuum system that ensured power efficiency as well as Site safety.

This is just a small look into Toshniwal’s methodology of combining our decades of experience along with our reliable Vacuum Systems to provide long term solutions that encourage our Clients to keep coming back to us.

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