Investigation on corrosion protection systems and wear problems for a ship unloader

In the harbour of Port Louis, a wheat ship unloader was facing serious corrosion problems due to the severe marine environment. Therefore, the aim of this study is to propose an effective corrosion protection system for the wheat ship unloader. In addition, wear was observed in its conveyor system. Solutions were proposed to reduce this. Different coating systems were selected, based on ISO 12944-5, including the coating presently being used on the equipment. Outdoor atmospheric exposures and lab tests were performed. The latter consisted of immersion test, water vapour transmission rate of coatings, wet scrub abrasion test, scratch test, pull-out test and flexibility test. For investigating the wear in the conveyor system, flow simulations were performed on Soildworks using different materials. From the investigation performed, it was found that the combination of modified vinyl epoxy primer and acryline polyurethane acrylic top coat was the most suitable for the ship unloader. For the wear problem, aluminium 6061was found to be a more wear resistant material.