Large-Scale Sandblasting Room Delivered to Wind Turbine Tower Manufacturer in China
To meet growing production demands and strict environmental standards, a major wind tower manufacturer in Tianjin partnered with us to build a state-of-the-art sandblasting room.
In the rapidly growing renewable energy sector, surface preparation plays a critical role in ensuring the long-term durability and performance of wind turbine towers. This case study presents a recently completed project in which a custom-engineered sandblasting room was delivered to one of the largest wind turbine tower manufacturers in Tianjin, China.
The customer, a publicly listed company with an annual production capacity exceeding 800 sets of wind tower sections, had been facing increasing bottlenecks in their surface preparation process. Their existing open-air blasting operations were not only unable to meet the growing production volume but also posed significant environmental and occupational health challenges. After a thorough evaluation of multiple suppliers, the customer selected our company to design, manufacture, and install a fully integrated sandblasting room tailored to their specific requirements.
Project Details
The sandblasting room measures 42 metres in length, 10 metres in width, and 8 metres in height, providing ample space to accommodate tower sections up to 30 metres in length, which are processed in two stages. The room is constructed with modular 100 mm thick polyurethane sandwich panels, coated internally with wear-resistant polyurea lining to absorb abrasive impact and extend the service life of the enclosure walls.
The abrasive recovery system is a key feature of this installation. A floor-mounted screw conveyor system, consisting of 8 transverse screw conveyors and 2 longitudinal elevators, transports the used abrasive from the blasting area to a three-stage cleaning unit. The cleaning unit comprises a vibrating screen for coarse debris removal, a magnetic separator for extracting ferrous contaminants, and an air-wash classifier for fine dust separation. The cleaned abrasive is then stored in a 5-tonne overhead hopper, ready for reuse. This closed-loop system achieves an abrasive recycling rate of over 95 percent, significantly reducing material consumption and operating costs.
Four pressure-type blast pots, each with a capacity of 1.5 cubic metres, supply abrasive to a total of 8 blasting nozzles. The nozzles are equipped with tungsten carbide liners, providing an operational life of approximately 800 hours. Two operators can work simultaneously inside the room, each connected to a supplied-air respirator system that delivers filtered breathing air from an external compressor station. The entire system is controlled by a PLC-based control panel with a 10-inch touch screen, allowing the operator to adjust blasting pressure, abrasive flow rate, and recovery system speed.
The dust collection system consists of a reverse-pulse-jet cartridge dust collector with a total filtration area of 600 square metres, powered by a 55 kW centrifugal fan. This system maintains the ambient dust concentration inside the room below 2 milligrams per cubic metre, well within the limits set by Chinese national occupational health standards. The exhaust air is further purified by a secondary HEPA filter before being discharged to the atmosphere.
Since its commissioning in March 2025, the sandblasting room has been operating three shifts per day, processing an average of 4 tower sections daily. The customer reports a 40 percent increase in production throughput compared to their previous setup, along with a dramatic improvement in working conditions. The surface finish achieved is consistently rated at SA 2.5, meeting the stringent requirements of the subsequent three-layer polyethylene coating process.
