with a length of 261.5 m, a width of 64 m, a height of 75 m and a mass of around 40,600 t the nuclear powered aircraft carrier "charles de gaulle" is the largest ship in the french navy and is one of the largest warships ever to be built in europe.
it was intended, amongst other things, to remove the paint from the entire hull and the deck and to re-coat during this year's renovation. this involved the "charles de gaulle" being laid up in dry dock in the military dock in toulon for 15 months. the external area of around 30,000 m² was divided up between three corrosion protection companies.
the order for renovation of approx. 11.000 m² of the ship's hull was received by the company sonocar industrie located near toulon. the coating removal work was to be carried out using high pressure water jet equipment.
after a comparison test of the 2,500 bar equipment falch T25 with several competitor models, sonocar decided to carry out the entire substrate preparation with falch and rented three plants for a period of four months.
project manager bernard contri: "we decided to go with falch because the competitor comparison showed that the T25 and the speed regulation rotor jet pointspeed 30 gave the largest area coverage and produced a super blast result. in addition, falch was able to offer a rental and service support location which looked after us on site and therefore ensured problem-free execution of the project!"