The company mobilised cranes and skates for the removal of an additional three units.
The HT300 was used to slide two old exchangers, weighing 22.2t and 26.7t, a distance of 18.2m before repeating the process in reverse with the replacement units that weighed 26.3t and 29.9t.
B&G acquired their original system in 2010, a year before Hydra-Slide was incorporated. Janine Smith, vice president at Hydra-Slide explained that while Hydra-Slide is only six years old, the equipment has been used since the 1980s.
Hydra-Slide’s president, Don Mahnke during his career as a mechanical engineer in the crane, transportation and rigging industry, developed the original HT300 design.
The standard HT300 package comes complete with load-bearing track, four skid shoes, push cylinders and all connecting hardware. The load-moving solution needs minimal clearance and has a total height of only 180mm. Additional skid track sections were supplied by Hydra-Slide on short notice to extend the double track of 15m that B&G had available.
They connect with a simple lug and pin set and can be leap-frogged to slide longer distances.
“Because every component is modular it was a simple task to send more tracks to B&G for their current project, and we were able to meet their short timeline,” said Smith. For this job B&G also used two Liebherr mobile cranes, a 100t capacity five-axle LTM 1100-5.2 and a 500t capacity eight-axle LTM 1500-8.1; a J&R Engineering Lift-n-Lock 1400 series hydraulic gantry and two Scheurle SPMTs, of six and 12 lines respectively.
Mark Morris, rigging superintendent at B&G Crane, explained that the first stage of the project included the removal of the existing exchangers using the LTM 1500-8.1. “At that point, grating from the elevation was opened up to allow rigging to be lowered through the existing floor. The exchangers were then blocked up with cribbing to allow installation of the Hydra-Slide tracks before they were lowered onto the skid shoes,” explained Morris.
Once the exchangers had been skidded clear of the site, the LTM 1100-5.2 lifted them onto the SPMTs for transportation to a lay-down area. “The process was completed in four 12-hour shifts, which included all the required rigging, setup, removal and installation work,” Morris said.
Extra safety measures were implemented in the planning stages to allow for elevated work on false work platforms, which were essentially barge ramps created by fabricating hand rails to OSHA specifications. Morris explained that the solution prevented potential fall and droprelated accidents from height.
