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The construction boom in the Middle East, particularly in Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030 mega-projects, has created enormous demand for fabricated steel structures. This case study documents the delivery and installation of a purpose-built sandblasting room at a leading steel structure fabrication plant in Jubail Industrial City, Saudi Arabia.

The customer is a joint venture between a Saudi Arabian construction conglomerate and a European steel engineering firm, specialising in the fabrication of structural steel for industrial buildings, bridges, and offshore platform modules. With contracts for several Vision 2030 projects, including NEOM-related infrastructure, the company needed to significantly expand its surface preparation capacity to meet the demanding delivery schedules.

Project Details
The sandblasting room is designed as a tunnel-type configuration, measuring 28 metres in length, 12 metres in width, and 7 metres in height. The tunnel design allows for continuous workflow, with a rail-mounted trolley system transporting steel beams and columns through the blasting zone at adjustable speeds ranging from 0.5 to 3 metres per minute. The trolley has a maximum load capacity of 20 tonnes and is equipped with an automated rotation mechanism for treating all four faces of I-beams and H-columns without manual repositioning.

The room is equipped with 8 blast pots, each with a 1 cubic metre capacity, supplying a total of 16 nozzles arranged in a configurable array. The nozzle array can be adjusted both horizontally and vertically to accommodate different beam sizes and profiles. A key innovation in this installation is the integration of an automated nozzle traverse system, which moves the nozzles in a programmable oscillating pattern, ensuring uniform coverage across the entire surface of the workpiece. This feature has proven particularly valuable for treating long steel girders up to 24 metres in length, where manual blasting would require significant time and effort.

The abrasive recovery system features a heavy-duty floor design with a pit depth of 1.2 metres, housing 6 heavy-duty screw conveyors with a combined conveying capacity of 40 tonnes per hour. The abrasive cleaning station includes a multi-deck vibrating screen, an intensive magnetic separator, and an air-wash classifier with adjustable settings for different abrasive types. The system is designed to handle both steel grit and garnet, giving the customer the flexibility to switch abrasives depending on the specific requirements of each project.

Given the extreme climatic conditions in Jubail, where summer temperatures can exceed 50 degrees Celsius, the sandblasting room is equipped with a dedicated HVAC system. A 120 kW chilled water air conditioning unit maintains the interior temperature between 25 and 30 degrees Celsius, while a desiccant dehumidifier controls the relative humidity below 50 percent. This climate control is essential not only for operator comfort but also to prevent flash rusting on the newly blasted steel surfaces, which would compromise the adhesion of the subsequent epoxy primer coating.

The dust collection system comprises a reverse-pulse-jet cartridge dust collector with 800 square metres of filtration area, powered by a 45 kW fan. An innovative feature is the integration of a spark arrestor and a fire suppression system, triggered by infrared detectors, which addresses the fire risk associated with accumulated steel dust in hot climates. The system has been tested and certified by Saudi Arabian Civil Defense authorities.
Since its commissioning in November 2024, the sandblasting room has processed over 1,500 tonnes of steel structures. The automated features have reduced the labour requirement from 8 operators to 3, while the consistent surface finish of SA 2.5 has been praised by third-party coating inspectors. The customer has since placed an order for a second, larger unit to handle offshore platform modules, demonstrating their satisfaction with the system’s performance.