Closed cleaning of the radar’s antenna is extremely convenient and is also protecting ship’s crew from being exposed to cargo vapours. With KROHNE Skarpenord’s closed cleaning facility you can give exposed parts thorough cleaning with steam, hot water or cleaning solvents without opening the tank. This is done through a washing connection protected by a ball valve. With crude oil in the tank, you might even wash it before you discharge your cargo, as the amount of steam/water used is minimal.

Every day tanker operators are experiencing that many cargoes leave residues from vapor and cargo on the antenna surface. These residues may interfere on the cargo level indication, as they are disturbing the radar signals. This is a weakness for all radar level gauging, but is depending on the cargo carried. Clean products do not normally require antenna cleaning, but crude oil and various chemicals will need cleaning.

The only way to receive correct tank readings is to clean the antenna and secure a good signal for the tank level radar.

Opening the cargo tank in a safe and approved way to atmosphere will require tank cleaning and venting of the tank for many hours. In KROHNE Skarpenord’s OPTIWAVE, the radar antenna may be cleaned with closed tank, which saves a lot of time and efforts!

Just connect a steam hose, water hose or even our portable hand pump to the cleaning connection, and you have a clean antenna in seconds!

A lockable ball valve is mounted on a specially designed cleaning nozzle. The nozzle is not disturbing the radar signals, and is pointing directly on where the radar signals are propagated from the transmitting / receiving unit. The design secures a thorough washing of all important parts.