Tug Boat Water Removal From Z Drive Systems

Marine Application - Water Removal From Tug Boat Z Drive Systems

A local tug boat company was having difficulty keeping water out of its port side z drive system. The Z drive is critical to the boats operation since it is the drive system that allows the prop to turn 360 degrees around in the water. The customer had been using water absorbing filters for years but had to change them frequently and at a high cost. In addition over time they began to find them ineffective in keeping water below the saturation point of their 220 weight gear oil.

Typical oil dehydrators are both expensive and cumbersome to use onboard ships. The PHoenix™ Membrane Oil Dehydrator and Purifier, built exclusively by MSC Filtration Technologies, was the best solution. This simple and effective portable or permanent kidney loop filtration system works either offline or online and can handle high viscosity liquids.

The Solution: PHoenix™ C1 gpm purifier cart

The Customer purchased a PHoenix™ C1 gpm cart to be installed on their 250 gallon z drive system. Water levels on the system initially came in at 330 ppm with the oil being hazy while Iso particulate cleanliness counts came in at over 21/20/19.

The Results:

After 6 days on the system water had dropped to 88 ppm with iso counts reducing to 18/16/14 and after 12 days reduced to a water level of 52 ppm and iso counts now down to 17/15/13.

Learn More About The PHoenix Solution | Download the Impact Story