Rotary Solid Stream Nozzles for Tank Cleaning
With this design multiple solid stream spray pattern nozzles are rotated around a tank to achieve high pressure cleaning all over. The solid stream spray pattern gives the most impact for any given flow rate of liquid as the potential energy of the spray is concentrated on the smallest area. The downside of this pattern is, of course, that it only hits a small area. With rotary tank washing nozzles, however, multiple rotating high powered jets of fluid are rotated in such a way as to give complete coverage. This process takes some time but depending on the configuration of the Oribtor can be as little as 6 minutes.
Efficiency of rotary tank cleaners
The impingement cleaning delivered by solid stream jets is by far the most water efficient method for cleaning. The total surface area cleaned per litre of water can be, in theory, 100's of times larger when compared to static spray nozzles.
| Tank cleaner | Scrub Distance (radius in meters) | Theoretical max clean area (m2) | Wash cycle | Flow rate (l/min) | Water used per cycle (l) | Water per meter squared cleaned (l) |
| TW12 (spiral) | 0.2 m | 0.5 m2 | 20 min | 23.7 (l/min) | 711 litres | 1414 litres / m2 |
| LEM (multi head nozzle) | 1.2 m | 18.1m2 | 20 min | 391 (l/min) | 7820 litres | 432 litres / m2 |
| HWP (Flat fan rotary nozzle) | 2.6 m | 85 m2 | 15 min | 287 (l/min) | 4305 litres | 50.7 litres / m2 |
| Orbitor (2 jet) | 10.1 m | 1281 m2 | 27 min | 330 (l/min) | 8844 litres | 6.9 litres / m2 |
The comparison above shows that solid stream rotary jets are by far the most water efficient cleaning systems, however, other tank cleaning systems offer other advantages in terms of cost, weight and size and so may be appropriate. It should also be noted that the comparisons made above are at the maximum reach for each system so an Orbitor cleaning a tank 5 meters in diameter will still use the same amount of water as it uses to clean a 10 meter diameter tank.
Generally the Oribitor is used for larger tanks or mediums sized vessels with very stubborn residues.
Versatility of rotary tank cleaners
The Orbitor rotary system comes in a 2 jet 4 jet or 8 jet variants of different sizes. This gives great versatility in configuration meaning complete rinse cycles can be as low as 5.5 minutes or as high as 35 minutes. The effective cleaning length of the jet can be as little as 3 meters or as high as 20 meters.
This high degree of variability means that the Oribtor can be configured to precisely to meet our customers unique tank cleaning applications.
Full details
HydroWhirl 180 degree
The video below shows an 8 jet orbitor that has been configured to only spray down wards. The jets automatically cut of if they are above the horizontal line.