Nordtec Service - Air Cooler

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Cleaning and mainenance of Air Cooler

The amount of fouling at the air and waterside of the charge air cooler will determine the operating conditions of the engine. Deposits reduce the capacity of the cooler and thus engine output.

Therefore the cooler should be cleaned at regular intervals, for example when the pressure drop across the cooler or receiver, air temperature becomes too high.

For the registration of cooler operation, it is recommended that a U-tube pressure gauge is installed between inlet and outlet charge air pipes.

Then, by comparing pressure drop values across the airside of the cooler against engine load, it becomes possible to monitor pressure drop changes or fouling.

A further recommendation is to clean the cooler before the pressure drop exceeds the clean-cooler value by max. 50%, or as a minimum to clean it each 6 month of operation.

Fouling of the air cooler waterside is normally not a problem in freshwater cooled systems.

For no water treated and saltwater cooled systems. However, every 3-4 months look for anodes and deposits in the tubes. In case of deposits in the tubes, the waterside should be acid-washed. (This work must not take place during operation, as this could damage the tubes.) The highest loss of cooler efficiency is on cooler with fouling on the waterside.

Airside

There are 3 different ways of cleaning the airside

1. Cooler removed from engine.

The best way of cleaning the airside is by cleaning the complete element in a vessel filled with air cooler cleaner. The removed cooler is immersed in a bath containing a cleaning fluid. The fluid is agitated to give the most efficient cleaning of the airside. The cleaning time depends on the amount of impurity in the element. Different acids / bases can be used depending on the actual type of deposits.

2. Cooler is not removed from engine.

An irrigation system is used to clean the cooler. This method does not remove all deposits from the fins.

3. Ultrasonic cleaning.

This is a very costly method of cleaning which will damage expanded coolers. The small vibrations spoil the tolerances between the fins and the tubes, resulting in a big efficiency loss.

Waterside

Fouling on the waterside is to be removed very often in order to keep a good performance of the cooler. This is done by deacidification of the cooler.

The cooler can be deacidificated while it is still in place. This operation does not take long time, about 2-3 hours.