Tecniplas presents composite tanks at Concasan

Tecniplas (Sao Paulo, Brazil), Brazilian manufacturer of composite tanks and special equipment, will showcase its composite tank designs at the Sanitation Congress of Santa Catarina (Concasan). The event takes place in Florianópolis Santa Catarina, Brazil, June 6-8, and is promoted by the Catarinense Water and Sanitation Company (CASAN, Santa Catarina, Brazil), with the support of the Union of Engineers of the State of Santa Catarina.

At this year's event, Tecniplas intends to discuss the importance of designing composite tanks taking into account the successive increases in wind loads in the Southern Region of Brazil. Wind bursts of almost 200 km/h are common at certain times in the region and can damage or even tear off the reservoirs from their bases if they have not been properly built.

"We design tanks subjected to wind loads with the addition of reinforcement rings, which protects them against external pressures and avoids dents that can damage their structure,” explains Luís Gustavo Rossi, director of Tecniplas.

Tecniplas will also show its process and storage tanks suitable for working with water, effluents and chemicals, as well as its megatanks made of composites. With up to 15m in diameter and a capacity to store up to 4.5 million liters, the giant tanks are manufactured in sections at the company’s plant and, through the oblation process, they are resized to allow for road transportation. 

“The idea is to show how much more advantageous is the use of composite tanks compared to similar ones made of concrete or vitrified steel,” says Rossi.

According to Rossi, the benefits of composite tanks of those of vitrified steel are the greater ease of installation – composite tanks are monolithic, not made up of thousands of bolted plates – and the absence of leaks. Concrete tanks require waterproofing, due to the natural porosity of the material. “Composites, in turn, are impermeable, immune to corrosion, have high mechanical strength and can be formulated with resins suitable to be in contact with drinking water,” says Rossi.