Requirements for anticorrosive protection of valves are very demanding in the gas industry, power industry and petrochemistry. Therefore, we apply a protective layer of Protegol coating on underground valves, which is very resistant to chemical effect of substances contained in the soil, biological affect, mechanical stress, abrasion and to aggressive environment.

This coating is characteristic by its high electrical resistance, stability depending on the temperature, permanent adhesion to metal, non-absorbency, water impermeability and non-porosity. Protegol does not contain substances aggressive to metal, has sufficient mechanical resistance and it does not pollute the environment.

What is Protegol?

Protegol is anticorrosive protection based on polyurethane without solvents and its high isolation properties shows especially at underground metal valves. Protegol is applied by hot spray (60 °C) during high pressure painting, while the gun, held by the painter in hand, is under pressure up to 425 bar and through the gun 9,9 liters of Protegol flows per minute. Complete coating consists of 6 layers (counted with aboveground part) and there needs to be at least 8 hours between each layer. The application of anticorrosive protection requires also high surface treatment, especially perfect blasting for creating optimal profile (roughness). By its character Protegol belongs to the area of heavy corrosion protection.

According to the difficulty of surface protection and number of valves, changes had to be done at ARMATURY Group to be able to meet customer requirements and delivery dates. There are not many companies in our area that use Protegol. Unfortunately, if such as a company is found, it does not have a crane which can handle valves of large diameters, for example ball valves of DN 700, which weighs 8 tons.

For this reason, we cooperate with an external company, which provides us with its employees and equipment to our halls. In our shipping hall we have set up a new workplace, which has a crane able to handle ball valves up to DN 900, i.e., 12 tons. The new workplace has sufficient crane capacity, its own access, and all necessary equipment. A really important factor in this time was that we could limit contact between employees of ARMATURY Group and the external company.

In ARMATURY Group we can protect 5 pieces of ball valves from DN 700 to DN 1000 per week, or 10 pieces of valves DN 500 or 15 pieces of DN 150 by anticorrosive protection Protegol. Construction of two more boxes increases the capacity of valves in dimension from DN 800 up to 12 pieces per week!

For more information: Jaroslav Trnčák, Head of Surface treatment