United Wagon Company, Arkonik and Sespel Cheboksary Enterprise are going to produce 15-6901-type tank containers for EuroChem, one of the world's leading manufacturers of mineral fertilizers.

Innovative tank containers with outstanding performance appeared at the beginning of 2018 due to scientific and technical collaboration of several production companies from different sectors. The new model of railcars replaced the old ones designed in Soviet era, back in the 1960s.

Due to the aggressively corrosive nitric acid to be transported in these railcars, it is necessary to manufacture them form the metal with improved properties. In order to address the challenge, Samara Metallurgical Plant had to modernize the equipment and improve the manufacturing technology of aluminium plates so that they exceed the industry standard requirements by 1.4 times in terms of strength properties, while maintaining high ductility and corrosion resistance of the material. These plates were used for manufacturing a boiler with significantly better performance than the existing railcars.

Sespel Cheboksary Enterprise, the leading equipment manufacturer, carried out welding operations required for the production of boilers. The applied method of friction welding with stirring reduces the risk of defects of joints, does not affect the environment, reduces costs, and increases by 10% the strength and ductility of welded joints compared to the initial material.

The new 15-6901-type tank containers are distinctly different from those currently in operation, as they have a lifting capacity of 75 tons and a boiler volume of 54.78 m3. Such characteristics provide for loading capacity increased by one third. The service life of the new tank containers is 40 years compared to 20 years for the existing railcars, and the overhaul interval is 800 thousand km (or 8 years) compared to 210 thousand km (or 2 years) for the standard railcars.

A new batch of tanks will be shipped to Azot Company (EuroChem’s subsidiary located in Novomoskovsk) by the end of the year. The first 30 tank containers for concentrated nitric acid were supplied to URALCHEM United Chemical Company in 2018.