SECTOR REPORT Ӏ HEAVY LIFTING
site,” said Marr’s managing
director, Simon Marr. Marr’s scope of work will include more than ten major lifts as well as general construction lifting over a period of 12 months. Marr’s M2480D arrived onsite in
January, has been erected and commissioned, and has completed its first lift: a 25 metre by 25 metre wide working platform. Construction of the Kangaroo
Point Green Bridge is anticipated to be completed in 2024.
DATA CENTRES Bridges, wind farm jackets, and refinery modules are classic heavy- lift loads. Less expected, perhaps, but increasingly in demand are data centres. Marr has an innovative approach based on removing
mammoet methodology enables Heavy lifts in half the time
The Ma’aden Waad Al Shamal Phosphate Company (MWSPC), based in Saudi Arabia, operates some of the largest and busiest fertiliser plants anywhere in the world. Take, for example, the Umm Wu’al
Sulphuric Acid and Power Plant, located in a new industrial city in the extreme northeast of the kingdom. Structured around three sulphuric acid trains containing a total of nine vast process towers, it produces almost 14,000 tonnes of fertiliser a day. As well as bringing wealth to this remote
region, its integrated power plant provides 150 megawatts of clean electricity to the local population. When the company was looking to upgrade the facility, and replace the original towers with cleaner, more effi cient equivalents, it needed to keep downtime to an absolute minimum. To compound the issue, the towers had originally been stick-built, not designed to be lifted in one piece when they needed to be replaced. The conventional approach for dismantling them piece-by-piece would take several months for each train. Fluor, the project consultant, reached out to Mammoet for a solution that could lift out the old towers in one piece. With careful planning, sophisticated computer modelling, the right equipment, and an experienced team, Mammoet was able to develop the solution to delicately lift out the old towers intact, then manoeuvre the modular replacements into position. To convince MWSPC and Fluor that
this unlikely operation could be achieved, Mammoet prepared a detailed engineering study. 3D digital models of each tower were supplemented by a series of ultrasonic tests to reveal their true structure and strength. A fi nite element (FE) simulation showed
how they would respond to the pressure of being hoisted out of the plant. And a series of bespoke frames and slings were designed to safely cradle the towers throughout the move.
A key requirement was to draft in the right equipment, and Mammoet had the tools for the job, in the shape of two crawler cranes – the 1,600t capacity CC8800-1 and 1,250t capacity CC6800 - and the 3,200t MSG-80 ring crane. With this combination, it became
possible to reach far above the tight confi nes of the site, extract all nine of the towers, move them to a central staging area, and hoist the replacements into position. Abdullah Terkaoui, project manager for Mammoet, explains: “Our methodology enabled our customers to reduce the planned shutdown schedule for each train
from 120 days to 45 days. Then, as the operation progressed, further time savings were realised: the complete shutdown of the fi rst train was completed in 30 days; in the second shutdown the lifts took only seven days, enabling completion in 22 days; and, for the third, the lift took just three days, with a total mechanical completion in 19 days. “This meant that, thanks to the entire
project team and everyone involved, all three shutdowns were completed two months (64 days) ahead of the original schedule - representing a time saving of over 50%.”
CRANES TODAY 47
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