Introduction to Designing Clean-in-Place Systems for Tanks and Vessels - a PDH Online Course for Engineers, Surveyors and Architects

Introduction to Designing Clean-in-Place Systems for Tanks and Vessels

Course Outline

Many processes used to produce food, beverages, drugs, consumer cosmetics, and personal care products utilize tanks and vessels. These vessels are often combined into multiple unit operations much like any chemical or other bulk fluid process. These vessels or tanks use various other components on the inside to store, hold, blend, mix, shear, stir, homogenize, heat, cool, ferment, extract, and otherwise physically manipulate the fluids. There are multiple and various reasons for cleaning these vessels. The most important factors to cleaning a vessel are associated with the product’s fluid characteristics, properties, or constituents. Designing a cleaning process for any vessel must also consider one of two general goals. They must either be cleaned on a regular basis to protect the safety of an end-user or to maintain the product’s quality. In some cases these two factors coincide but more frequently they do not and, at times, even contradict each other. These two different design goals are explored in this course in the context of the process, vessel, and product characteristics.

This course includes a multiple-choice quiz at the end, which is designed to enhance the understanding of course materials.

Learning Objective

At the conclusion of this course students will understand:

The basic clean-in-place criteria and terminology for tanks and vessels;
priorities for designing clean-in-place systems and to indentify key process data needed to properly evaluate the performance of CIP systems for process vessels;
The basis for legacy systems designed for tanks prior to 1970;
The role of rotation in the performance of dynamic in-place cleaning devices;
The effects of the tank design on its cleanability;
The relative importance of tank shape in designing a cleaning system;
How the finish of internal surfaces affects the potential for contamination and the cleanability of the tank;
Key Tank Construction Variables;
The relationship between the methods of adding product reagents and carrier fluid to the tank and the residue quality;
The relationship between tank operating conditions and the cleaning design;
How the method used to remove the fluids from the tank or vessel is related to the amount and form of the residual left behind on vessel surfaces;
The three major types of cleaning standards and their relationship to markets and the intended effect of the product;
How various fluid distribution devices differ in their methods to remove the residues through time, action, chemistry, or temperature (TACT);
How legacy designs approach the in-tank portion of the cleaning problem;
Flow regimes and efficiencies of static devices;
Design guidelines for the static spray ball devices; and
Advantages and performance of the major types of rotating devices.

Intended Audience

This course is introductory in nature and intended for those mechanical and process engineers or operators who are relatively unfamiliar with the design problem of Clean-In-Place systems. It is intended for plant engineers and process personnel who may be faced with either process performance deficiencies or product quality issues that may be remediated by updating, renovating, revising, or replacing their current vessel or tank cleaning procedures. As such, the information in this course should be considered for project scoping or feasibility studies but not for detailed design guidance.

Benefit for Attendee

Multiple factors must be considered in designing CIP systems for tanks and vessels. It is sometimes difficult to incorporate all of them into the CIP design. Designers and specifiers of clean-in-place systems should be familiar with process design factors to be addressed in CIP systems, the design basis for legacy CIP designs, and state-of-the-art alternative cleaning methods and designs. Finally, CIP designers and specifiers should understand the relevance and importance of clean-in-place designs to their process efficiency and product quality.

Course Introduction

Cleaning vessels and tanks “in-place” is a relatively recent development in process design. This is due in part to the fact many vessels, except for those in the pharmaceutical industry, have been in service since the 1950s to 1960s and are not yet ready to be replaced. Clean in-place technologies evolved in the 1950s for the dairy industry when cleaning vessels and tanks out-of-place became impractical due their size and/or productivity demands. Therefore, any cleaning technologies that may have evolved in the last 20 years did so after most vessels were placed into service. Consequently the relationship between vessel cleaning and product quality, vessel changeover and product turnaround times, product safety, process efficiency, and the overall efficiency of the cleaning process itself are fairly recent developments in process design.

Course Content

The course content is contained in the following PDF file:

Introduction to Designing Clean-in-Place Systems for Tanks and Vessels

Please click on the above underlined hypertext to view, download or print the document for your study. Because of the large file size, we recommend that you first save the file to your computer by right clicking the mouse and choosing "Save Target As ...", and then open the file in Adobe Acrobat Reader. If you still experience any difficulty in downloading or opening this file, you may need to close some applications or reboot your computer to free up some memory.

Course Summary

The key process criteria for in-place cleaning systems for tanks are found to be associated with the product’s characteristics and the vessel’s operating conditions. The process is designed to provide a product that meets end-user needs and are found to vary greatly according to industry. Process properties are shown to drive the selection of the CIP methods. The complexity of tanks being fabricated for today’s processes are reviewed and shown to overwhelm the simple design approach using static spray balls, particularly when pipeline cleaning is also needed. The method for evaluating process characteristics as part of selecting the in-tank cleaning device is reviewed. Supply system designs are derived from the operating characteristics of the CIP device. Methods which optimize the design are found to be based on the in-place device selected. Pipeline cleaning may be integral to the design of the supply system but not the in-place system for the tank. As tanks reach the end of their design service lives and are targeted for replacement, cleaning design for the actual in-tank conditions should be a greater focus for the designer, up to and including designing separate systems if the conditions warrant.

Related Links and References

3-A Sanitary Standards Inc. (3-A SSI)

Accepted Practices for Systems Design
Sanitary Standards for Equipment

American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM)

Standard A 480/A 480M, Standard Specification for General Requirements for Flat-Rolled Stainless and Heat-Resisting Steel Plate, Sheet, and Strip

American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME)

Biopharmaceutical Subcommittee; BPE - 2007 Bioprocessing Equipment Standards
Pressure Vessel Subcommittee; BPVC - 2007 Boiler and Pressure Vessel Code

International Society of Pharmaceutical Engineers (ISPE)

Good Practices Guidelines

United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA)

Code of Federal Regulations, Chapter 21, Title 21, Part 210 – Current Good Manufacturing Practice in Manufacturing, Processing, Packing, or Holding of Drugs

Quiz

Once you finish studying the above course content, you need to take a quiz to obtain the PDH credits.

DISCLAIMER: The materials contained in the online course are not intended as a representation or warranty on the part of PDH Center or any other person/organization named herein. The materials are for general information only. They are not a substitute for competent professional advice. Application of this information to a specific project should be reviewed by a registered architect and/or professional engineer/surveyor. Anyone making use of the information set forth herein does so at their own risk and assumes any and all resulting liability arising therefrom.