African Fusion November 2020

Specialty items such as forgings and piping had to be manufactured in Europe and delivered to South Africa within the strict project timelines. replacement components and then created manufacturing drawings to facilitate machining, fabrication and construction. He says the project was logistically demanding as specialty items such as forgings and piping had to bemanufactured in Europe and delivered to South Africa within the strict project timelines, while complying with the best practices in accordance with the latest international design codes available, and benefiting from the design smarts to minimise calculated stresses. Once the raw material arrived on site, Babcock was able to com- mence with machining and welding of piping sub-assemblies, installing of temperature thermocouples and condensate drain outlets, before site construction. “As the project deadline approached, construction timelines proved to be demanding due to the inclusion of specialty processes such as balanced erection and neutral float, areas in which Babcock is highly experienced,” says Naidoo. He explains that individual pipe spools and sub-assemblies of pipework and fittings were erected and hung into pre-determined locations. Load cells were used at selected locations on these spools and sub-assemblies and cell readings were compared to the calculated balanced loads. Once actual loads were within range of the calculated loads, the spools and sub-assemblies were balanced before the welds could be completed. Upon completionof piping erection, a neutral float procedurewas used to prove the system piping support effort and success of the balanced erection procedure. After neutral float acceptance, terminal point welds were completed. Approximately 85% cold-pull was installed in the piping system using various control monitoring processes to ensure that the correct moments were introduced and distributed throughout the sub-sections as per cold pull-calculations. “Quality control measures, which formed key gate keepers leading to cold handover, proved challenging because the majority of this phase was done over the festive season, meaning the availability of resources from sub-contractors was not as abundant as during other periods,” says Naidoo. “With great effort, dedication and teamwork from both Babcock and the client, along with many late nights and weekends away, the unit was successfully and safely synchronised to the power grid on 16 February 2020,” he concludes. www.babcock.co.za

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November 2020

AFRICAN FUSION