Wierd placement of vacuum breaker

[grnis]

I have several fermenters, with a wierd placement of the vacuum breakers.



That's the CIP pipe, with CIP supply valve on the left, pressure adjusting valve on the right and vacuum breaker on the bottom.

Vacuum breakers are most useful when cleaning tanks, but the vacuum breaker seems be blocked by the CIP fluid during cleaning. Correct?

Don't think I have the guts to clean a fermenter without a functioning vacuum breaker.

[gitchegumee]

Doesn't look like a quality design...

Agree with your concerns. There are rules for pressure vessel design in the US. Not sure that foreign equipment manufacturers have the same requirements when importing tanks. They should have. Can the adjustable "safety" relief valve be adjusted to above 1 bar? If so, then it's another design flaw. A 2" short ferrule welded to the top of the tank and a combination vacuum/relief valve would solve the problem. Or put the whole existing CIP assembly on the top of the tank and use another valve on the CIP tube. Good luck and hope others don't get stuck with this sort of design.

[grnis]

Agree with your concerns. There are rules for pressure vessel design in the US. Not sure that foreign equipment manufacturers have the same requirements when importing tanks. They should have. Can the adjustable "safety" relief valve be adjusted to above 1 bar? If so, then it's another design flaw. A 2" short ferrule welded to the top of the tank and a combination vacuum/relief valve would solve the problem. Or put the whole existing CIP assembly on the top of the tank and use another valve on the CIP tube. Good luck and hope others don't get stuck with this sort of design.

Thank you! I was afraid of that. Well, then we will have to:

1. Disconnect the sample valve, DN32, when rinsing away the caustic. And I'll have to program the CIP plc to pulse rinse the fermenters. And perhaps open the manway slightly.
Or
2. Do some welding work with the existing equipment or get some proper, CIP-cleanable combined safety valve for lots of money.

I'll probably go with option 1, even though my blood pressure will rise every time a fermenter is cleaned.

The bung valve is probably adjustable from 0-3 bar. European combitanks can usualy take at least 1,5 bar.