Safe-Cut, a mobile cold-cutting service that specializes in safely and efficiently removing petroleum storage tank floors with ultra-high pressure waterjet, announced today that it has acquired a second Jet Edge-powered RAGWORM® robotic waterjet cutting system to meet a growing demand for its services.
Based in Kilgore, Texas, Safe-Cut is a sister company of Mass Technology Corporation Company, a leading provider of precision leak measurement for above (AST) and underground (UST) fluid storage tanks. Safe-Cut provides mobile waterjet cutting services to storage tank contractors and builders throughout North America. It is the only contractor in North America that offers storage tank waterjet cutting services using the patented RAGWORM robotic system developed by Jet Set Hydro Technics B.V. of the Netherlands.
Safe-Cut’s RAGWORM waterjet cutting system is part of a totally self-contained rig that does not require an outside water supply or power. It uses 46,000psi. (3,200 bar) abrasive waterjets (ultra-high pressure waterjets mixed with abrasive garnet) to cut tank floors into easily removed sections without the risk of explosion or creation of toxic fumes associated with traditional cutting methods such as oxyacetylene torches. The RAGWORM crawls along the bottom of a tank and cuts away sheet after sheet of steel plate. It also can ride along the side of the tank and separate the walls from the floor and roof. RAGWORM can quickly cut through ¼” (6mm) carbon steel at an average speed of 125 feet per hour (38 meters/hour)
The robotic cutter is powered by a 46,000 psi. (3,800 bar) diesel waterjet intensifier pump manufactured by Jet Edge, Inc., of St. Michael, Minn., (USA). Using only 1 gallon (4 liters) of water per minute, the cutter has minimal impact (2”or 5cm) on the underlying terp. It requires as few as two operators, one monitoring the diesel-generated power-pack and Jet Edge waterjet intensifier pump located outside the tank, the other controlling the cutter unit within the tank.
Jimmy Wolford, Safe-Cut’s vice president of operations, said his company’s business has been booming since it first started offering mobile waterjet cutting with the RAGWORM system in 2007. In its first year of business, Safe-Cut already has completed a dozen large contracts and expects to see continued growth as word spreads about its unique mobile waterjet cutting service.
“People in the industry have been very impressed,” Wolford said. “Their response to the system is that it is the best they have ever seen and they all say ‘why haven’t we been doing this before.’”
“The safety aspects speak for themselves,”
In addition to being safer than torches, waterjet cutting also is much more efficient because waterjets can cut through multiple layers of steel plates and epoxy or fiberglass liners all in one pass, Wolford added. When using a torch, the liners must be painstakingly blasted away or delaminated from the steel plate prior to cutting.
Wolford said his customers have been surprised by the RAGWORM system’s efficiency and minimal water and garnet usage.
“Eastman Chemical called us to get a quote on a 52’ diameter chemical tank with a potentially hot bottom. After we gave them our estimate, they asked how much water and garnet we would use and how long it would take us. We told them one day, less than 500 gallons of water and less than 1,000 pounds of garnet. They were very skeptical at first because other companies that quoted the project said it would take two days, require 10,000 to 12,000 gallons of water and three to four tons of garnet. We got the job and they wanted us to prove it so we put 500 gallons of water in our tank. At the end of the day, the bottom plate was cut into 6’X20’sections and ready for removal with just 375 gallons of water and 800 pounds of garnet.
“On a typical day, we can cut ¼” plate at a rate of 25 to 30 inches per minute per cutter. We typically operate with 2 to 4 active cutters. We use less than 1 gallon of water per minute per nozzle. We can run up to four nozzles, so that is a max of four gallons per minute.”
In another project, Murphy Oil asked Safe-Cut to remove a floor from a 210-foot diameter crude oil tank after another contractor was unsuccessful in cutting through the steel plate floor and sideshell. The floor plate was ¼” while the side shell plate was in excess of 2”.
“The other contractors had worked on it for three or four weeks with limited success,” Wolford said. “We completed the project in less than five days.”
Wolford said his company has been very impressed with its Jet Edge waterjet intensifier pump and the RAGWORM cutting system.
“We have been very satisfied with the RAGWORM system and the Jet Edge waterjet pump,” he said. “The performance on both has been very good. We have had no problems.”
More Information
For more information about Safe-Cut, visit http://www.safe-
For more information about Jet Set Hydro Technics and RAGWORM visit http://www.ragworm.nl, call +31 (0)227-602977 or e-mail info@ragworm.nl.
For more information about Jet Edge, visit http://www.jetedge.com, call 1-800-JET-EDGE (538-3343) or e-mail sales@jetedge.com.
