Friday, March 18, 2011

Transformer Offload, Transport, and Replacement

Market: Power

Location: Mississippi

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The Challenge

A customer contracted Barnhart Crane & Rigging Company to receive, offload, and stage four 520,000 pounds Hyundai transformers in Mississippi for the 2012 Extend Power Uprate (EPU) outage in 2012. Potential problems with the dock, where the Barnhart team would offload the massive EPU equipment, put a small hiccup in the schedule.

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The Solution

The water at the roll off site suffered from siltation pollution. This simply means that the water contained higher concentrations of sediments and soil buildup than normal. This problem brought the dock's integrity into question, but a professional engineering review found the dock's structure perfectly stable to withstand very heavy weights.

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The Description

The EPU outage allows the power plant to update their components and equipment in order to produce more power. The customer contracted Barnhart to help with the power plant's uprate.

After finding the dock to be absolutely safe, Barnhart assigned its newest fleet addition, the LR 1700 Barge Crane Big Al, to the task of offloading the massive transformers.

The Barnhart team than loaded the four transformers to a 195' x 35' deck barge that eventually hooked up with Big Al at a local port.

Once the team secured the barge to two dolphins near the new dock destination, the crew spent a day in setting up the ballasts for lifting operations. Big Al then successfully relocated the huge transformers from the barge to an awaiting 16-line PSTe trailer on the dock. By using Big Al's nifty winch system, the team perfectly aligned the transformers atop the Goldhofer.

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The trailer transported the four transformers to a staging location just a short distance south of the dock. The intermediate staging allowed the Barnhart crew to offload all four transformers in a single day!

Next, Barnhart will move the transformers to a much more distant staging location, where the team will dress them out in preparation for the upcoming EPU. During this scheduled EPU outage, the team will replace the plant's old transformers with the new ones Barnhart has transported.

Major Equipment Used

  • LR 1700 Barge Crane "Big Al"
  • 16-Line Goldhofer PSTe Trailer

Barnhart Crane & Rigging Company Services:

 

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