The last delivery received from FMA by Formaco was massive forged rings made from weld able steel in alloy S460 material. These rings were to be integrated into the many pivotal points in the Pieter Schelte, currently largest lifting vessel ever built. The ship has up to 48,000t lifting capacity, which must be sustained when lifting an entire oil platform. This puts high demands on the mechanical components of the lifting mechanism.
Formaco director Robert Heester, said: "This was a huge task for Formaco. Our rings are in all the pivot points of the hoisting arms of this ship; totalling up to 30 trucks full of tempered steel forgings that were transported from FMA’s location in Arese, Italy.
But before our client, the designer and buyer Allseas Engineering Delft, bought the material, we first had to perform a series of welding and other techniques to the material, such as the notch impact value with the crack tip opening displacement test. Fortunately, all of our supplied materials have passed the various welding tests and CTOD tests with success, but we did not really expect anything else from our Italian partner FMA,"
Allseas said that the vessel would be ready for offshore operations at the end of 2014.
