At the beginning of last year, the Madeira River reached record highs, reaching up to 25 meters in some cities. The floods in Madeira and its tributaries caused flooding in many places in the states of Amazonas, Rondônia and Acre, leaving thousands of people homeless and cities in a state of public calamity. The waters took a long time to subside, and caused flooding, like what happened in the tank park at the Porto Velho Terminal (Tevel), which lasted about three months. During this period, the entire area around the tanks remained flooded, as well as the installed equipment, including IQ electric actuators from Rotork.
When the waters went down, Fluxo technicians went to the site to check the equipment and, even having been subjected to this extreme condition, all 24 actuators installed were in perfect working order, with no trace of infiltration or damage to the internals, and only the batteries needed to be replaced. This was only possible thanks to Rotork's effort to innovate and always strive for the maximum level of reliability of its equipment. Based on this philosophy, the IQ line of actuators was designed with key features such as the IP66/IP68 degree of protection (which guarantees submersion in water at 7 meters for 72 hours) as standard, double sealing and a completely non-intrusive configuration.
The concept of double sealing was created by Rotork in 1970, when Rotork founder Jeremy Fry, based on his offshore experience, realized the great increase in actuator reliability by isolating the terminal compartment block from the electronics, and other components, through a second internal seal. Another innovation, and a revolution in the concepts of reliability of these electric actuators, came with the launch of Rotork's IQ line in 1993, bringing for the first time the concept of non-intrusive configuration, allowing the entire installation and configuration of the equipment to be carried out without exposing the electronics and motor of the equipment.
Another case that received great attention proving the effectiveness of the double sealing of Rotork actuators took place in 2007 in Tewkesbury, Gloucestershire, England. During the summer of 2007, the water treatment company Mythe Water Treatment Works had to face the flooding of the River Severn, something that had never happened in Mythe's 137-year history. This flood reached more than 150 Rotork electric actuators among IQ, A and AQ. In order to immediately assist the company, technicians were made available to assess the situation of each actuator at the incident site, but none of the actuators that were flooded needed to be replaced.