Indian Journal of Engineering & Materials Sciences

Vol. 9, June 2002, pp. 194-196

Barnacle cleanship by simple chemical treatment

P G K Murthy, Reji John, K V Sanil Kumar & G V Krishna Kumar
Naval Physical and Oceanographic Laboratory, Cochin 682 021 , India

Received 19 June 2001; accepted 27 Febrt/my 2002

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The transd ucer assembly of the Acoustic Doppler Current ProfileI' (ADCP) is installed on the ship's hull directly
exposing it to sea water. Consequently, the barnacles deposit and grow on and around the tran sducers. Conventional
barnacle cleaning techniques could not be adapted in thi s case due to sensitive nat ure of the polyurethane cover (around the
transducers) to the mechanical impacts. So, a simple chemical method is tried to remove the barnacle deposits. The
transducers are immersed in dilute HCI of 3 N for dissolving the barnacles. The roots of the barnacles are removed with a
brush, and the oi ly film s are cleaned by soa king the tran sducers in soapy water. The tran sducers are finally washed with
fre sh water.

The Acoustic Doppler Current Profiler (ADCP)
measures the ocean currents in the upper 400 m water
column at fine resolution from a moving ship using
Doppler principle). Two pairs of transducers (PZT
crystals), aligned in a cross-form, are mounted on the
ship hull without any protective window. The
tran sducers are covered with polyurethane material to
protect them from external damages . Due to constant
exposure to sea water, barnacles (CaCO)) grow all
over the transducers. Conventional techniques like
sand blast, hammering and chiseling, etc. cannot be
adopted to clean these barnacle deposits because of
the sensitive nature of the polyurethane cover to
mechanical impacts. Therefore, a simple chemical
method is developed without damaging the protective
polyurethane covers.
Experimental
Barnacle growth
The direct exposure of the tran sducers to the sea
water accelerates the deposit and consequent growth
of barnacles on and around the tran sducers , as shown
in Fig. I. The growth becomes more rapid with the
inc reas ing residence time of the ship at the harbour.
The barnacle growth has two effects. First, it reduces
the power of th e trans mitted signal, which reduces the
profi li ng ra nge of til e system . Second, the barnacles
can pierce throu gh polyurethane covers around the
tran sducers, which leads to insulati o n breakage and
low signal- to-no ise ratios (SNR). Even when th e
ADCP is installed in a protec tive window, th e
barnacles can still grow on th e outer s ide of window
cover. Hence, it beco mes in ev itable to clea n th e
barnacle deposits on the transducers during each dry-
docking of the ship.
Barnacle removal
In dry-docking, isolated packets of barnacle
deposits from the ship's hull are normally cleaned by
chiseling and hammering . Large barnacle depos its
from the ship's hull are traditionally removed by 'sa nd
blast' technique, where sand showers are blasted
against th e ship's hull to eject the barnacles . These
techniques, when applied to the ADCP system, can
create cracks or holes on the polyurethane cover
around the transducers .
The firm (RD Instruments, USA) suggested high
quality diluted muriatic acid to clean the barnacles
and the dilution of this acid needs to be determined
based on trials in the laboratory. Also, thi s acid is
not available in the local market. Hen ce, a chemical
method is tried with commercially available HCI , for
the first time, for cleaning the barnacle deposits , after
.'
,
--
Fig . I- ADCP tran sducers with barnacle depos its
 MURTHY et al.: BARNACLE CLEANSHIP BY SIMPLE CHEMICAL TREATMENT
conducting initial experiments 10 the laboratory to
know the reaction of HCI with barnacles,
polyurethane and steel and also to decide on the
optimum dilution of the acid.
Laboratory tests
In the first step, a few barnacles, which contain
essentially CaCO) are collected in a glass beaker
containing conc. HCl (36 N). The CaCO) is converted
2
to CaCh, which dissolves in water
CaCO) + 2HCI ----t CaCl 2 + H20 + CO 2 i
The acid with different dilutions are tried and
found that the dissolving rate of barnacles decreases
with the increasing dilution of the acid.
In the second step, a few polyurethane (RNH
COOR' ; Rand R' represent hydrocarbon materials of
two different compositions and origin) samples are
kept in different concentrations of HCI for one to two
days. It is observed that the dil. HCI at room
temperature does not react with polyurethane
material , but conc. HCl at room temperature reacts
with the polyurethane material 3 as follows.
RNH COOR + HCI ----t RNH COCl + HOR
(carbamoyl (alcohol)
chloride)
Since, the barnacles grew over the ship's steel
frame around the transducers, in the third step, a few
steel (Fe) samples similar to ship's hull are immersed
in HCl of different concentrations for one to two days
to test the reaction of HCI with steel. Only conc. HCl
at room temperature is found to react with Fe samples
(the presence of carbon content in the steel is
neglected, as its content is very low).
Fe + 2 HCl ----t FeCl 2 + H2 i
All the above tests revealed th at dil. HCl of 3 N
(i .e. 90 cc of concentrated Hel in 910 cc of distilled
water) can be safely used to get the best results on
barnacle cleanship.
Chemical treat ment
The followi ng method IS developed and
imp lemented successfull y for cleaning the barnacle
depos its on and aro und the transducers o f ADCP
during dry dock ings of INS Sagardh wani .
18 L of HCI of 3 N ( 1620 cc of conc. HCl in
195
Fig. 2---Schematic diagram showing the set-up for cleaning the
barnacles from the ADCP transducers. (J) ADCP transducers (2)
.. .(1) Barnacle deposit (3) Polyethylene tub (4) Dil. HCI and (5)
Wooden support
16380 cc of distilled water) are filled in a
polyethylene circular tub of suitable dimensions.
While, preparing the chemical solution one should be
cautious to add requisite quantity of acid to the water
but not water to the acid, as the latter is harmful. The
transducer assembly is fully immersed in thi s acid
solution, as shown in Fig. 2, for 6 to 8 h. Thi s
treatment enables the barnacles to dissolve in the
chemical solution as they loose grip. The
remains/roots of the barnacle deposits are removed by
scrubbing with a soft brush after wetting it in dil. HCl
of 3 N. After this, traces of oily films from the
... (2) transducer surfaces are removed by soaking the
transducers in soapy water for about 8 h. The
transducers are finally cleaned by immersing them in
fresh water for 1 to 2 h and repeating it twice or
thrice.
After successful implementation of the above
method, similar barnacle deposits on the shallow-
water and deep-water echo sounders on thi s ship are
also cleaned by the same method.
Conclusions
The barnacle used to grow over the transducers of
. . . (3) the ADCP system due to latter's direct exposure to the
seawater. These deposi ts require periodical cleaning
during the dry-docking of the ship. Conventional
barnacle cleaning methods could not be used, as they
can damage the polyurethane cover around the
transducers . The transducers are given a chemical
treatment with dil. HCI of 3 N initially, with whi ch
the barnacles are di ssolved in the acid . The roots of
the barnacle deposits are removed by scrubbing with a
soft brush, wetted in thi s acid. Then the transducers
are given a soapy and fresh water baths two-to-th ree
times to remove the oily patches from the transducers.
Thi s method is also successfull y tri ed on the hull
mounted shall ow and deep water echo so unders.
196 INDIAN J. ENG. MATER. SCI., JUNE 2002

Acknowledgement Profiler - Technical manual (RD Instruments), 1991, 86.

The authors are grateful to the Director of NPOL,
2 Partington T R, General inorganic chemistry for university
for his interest and encouragement while developing
students, 4th ed, (Macmillan Publishing Co. Inc. New York),
this innovative technique and thankful to the referees
1966,371.
for their valuable comments.
References 3 Gunter Oenel, Polyurethane handbook, (Hanser Publishers,
1 R D Instruments Vesl:el mounted Acoustic Doppler Current New York), 1985, 93.