Steel products manufacturer Structa Group has launched their new Circotank brand, which offers a range of rolled sectional steel tanks.
Circotank is a cost effective, galvanised steel segmented tank with a polyvinylchloride (PVC) liner that is ideal for rural and industrial applications.
The tank will be offered in a Midi range and a Maxi range.
The Midi range fills a gap not covered by typical moulded plastic tanks and is well suited to applications where users need storage of between 5 000 ℓ and 20 000 ℓ, often on stands to create distribution pressure.
The Midi range is simple to build and requires no special equipment. Assembly crew can easily assemble and lift segments onto tank stands using standard rope and pulley systems.
The Midi range is optimally suited to application in schools, clinics and small rural-water storage.
The Maxi range covers tank sizes of between 100 000 ℓ and 1.5 M ℓ. The range targets large-scale water projects, with typical application in industrial water storage such as fire tanks and mass rural water supply schemes.
The tanks are transported in prerolled segments, which allows for compact transport and easy offloading.
They are erected on concrete ring-beam foundations and require reasonably simple earthworks beforehand. Erection is done using a strake lifting system that requires no craneage, resulting in an economical total cost for every cubic meter of water storage.
Structa Group chairperson Piet Coetzer enthuses that the equipment used for the semi-automatic punching and profiling was custom-developed for the product and is adjustable to allow for a range of intermittent tank sizes to be manufactured in future.
Coetzer adds that, in typical bolted tanks, much care and effort are required to ensure that structural joints do not leak.
Using the PVC liner negates structure leaks, which consequently speeds up the assembly and sealing process.
Liners also extend tank life, owing to their being repaired and even replaced, with the structure of the tank remaining intact.
The Circotank range took 18 months to move from concept to the first manufactured products, with non-linear finite element analysis being used to optimise structural performance during the design cycle.
The Circotank system was developed by the Structa Group’s Pretoria-based engineering team, after which the custom-made rolling system was built at its Meyerton factory, in Gauteng.
Coetzer concludes that the Structa Group understands that South Africa is a water-scarce country and has, therefore, developed the economical and robust range to cater for the storage of water and long-term water supply.