How Westfall’s Team Made A South African Engineer’s Top Choice Available and Affordable

May 4, 2016 Bristol, RI, USA… When a Water Treatment Plant in South Africa needed to increase their conversion of raw water to potable water by up to 57% (without building new infrastructure) they turned to PCI Africa, specialists in engineering and constructing municipal water systems.

PCI Africa then turned to Westfall because they needed to replace a pair of inline static mixers that had been underperforming: creating excessive headloss and inadequate mixing.

Compact High Shear Plate Model 2800This customer required a mixing CoV of 0.05. A CFD analysis of Westfall’s Plate Mixer Model 2800 was reviewed by the customer in South Africa. The analysis proved that the CoV for the proposed mixer would be less than 0.05 at 10 pipe diameters downstream from the mixing plate.

The Westfall units would more than provide the effective mixing needed, and would drop easily into the existing short lay length.

On April 18, PCI Africa placed the order.

The mixers had to be on location by the beginning of June. The cost of airfreight was prohibitive, and ocean freight would take more than 30 days.

This gave the Westfall team a narrow window of 5 working days to custom manufacture two 40″ stainless steel plate mixers with injection ports and flanges, put them through a 3-stage inspection process, then crate for delivery to the U.S seaport.

On April 22, Westfall shipped the order.

Westfall’s sales rep at JLS International reports that PCI Africa is delighted with Westfall’s affordability and speed of production on a custom order of this size. Because of the simple drop-in installation, the new mixers require no new infrastructure and will cause minimal interruption to the customer’s potable water delivery service.

westfall manufacturing newsWestfall’s High Shear Plate Mixer 2800 replaced an outdated in-line mixer and helped to provide a 57% increase in water delivery.

When retrofitting older water treatment installations, engineers often find outdated static mixers, like the one here, that unnecessarily reduce pressure and limit the delivery of potable water.

westfall manufacturing newsIn comparison, Westfall’s elegant solution is a drop-in plate that is proven to provide high-shear mixing while preserving necessary pressure.