Because pipe racks used in chemical and power plants are big and heavy, they are often assembled in situ. But not always. Burkhalter Rigging of Columbus, Missouri, USA helped design and transport new pipe decks last year for a power station in Pennsylvania. The essential question clients ask is: ‘How big and how heavy can we build these things and still get them from shop to the site?’
Fabricator McAbee Construction built the modules as they would sit at the site, and then separated them for transport. The biggest of the 12 modules transported measured 25m long, 8m wide and 14m high. It weighed 209t (230 US tons). Burkhalter used 20 lines of self-propelled Goldhofer trailer with hydrostatic transmission to move the structures 1.5km from McAbee’s Alabama fabrication shop to two barges, where they would be shipped to site in Pennsylvania.
Burkhalter built in extra structural steel to support the modules during the three-week open-water trip around Florida up the Atlantic coast.
Heavy rain raised water levels at the port and further complicated several loading jobs of the biggest modules. The engineers had to build a make-shift dock out of railway sleepers and temporary bridge segments to load some of the modules. The trailers’ hydraulic axle compensation of 300mm was completely used in some hauls to get the load on the barge. Despite the complexity of the job, the Burkhalter team finished the job a day early.
