Techcoat Services completed the design and installation of a flexible joint system for an 18m Permeate Water Storage Tank at a Desalination Plant. The tank was constructed with ceramic coated steel walls embedded within an epoxy coated concrete floor. Differential expansion and contraction between the coated steel (water one side, air the other) and the concrete floor (water one side, sub soil the other) created a situation where the wall to floor interface was not able to be sealed. The high purity of the tank contents created a situation where any applied coatings were exposed to very high osmotic blistering forces and all previous attempts to seal this tank had failed, Techcoat Services was asked to design a system to solve this problem.

The system developed for this problem was a fibreglass reinforced flexible epoxy/urethane system applied to the concrete floor and ceramic coated steel walls. The final system was bonded to over 200mm of both the walls and floor and with a central “expansion” section of 100mm of flexible fibreglass reinforced urethane bridged over a preformed cove that allowed independent movement of the walls and floor. Techcoat Services delivered a water tight seal, on time in adverse weather conditions