Project: Cement Manufacture

Project Information

As part of a £6.4m kiln expansion project, to increase production by 25% from 800k TPA to 1m TPA, several extra cables of several hundred metres was required to be installed. These ranged from fibre-optic to control and power cables. The challenge faced by the project engineers was how to install the cables from the MCC panel in the substation to the field device(s) utilising the existing cable ladders and keeping costs to a minimum. The cable run consisted of vertical ladders within a cable gantry arrangement and a vertical run of 250ft over 6 floors of the pre-heater tower. The commissioning of the plant modifications had to be done during a 4-week shutdown period. Therefore all the new cables had to be installed beforehand whilst the plant was running. Access was required to the cable management systems to install the cables. Several options were considered based on cost, access and safety.

MEWP
- Poor access restricted getting the MEWP to the area of work.
- The cable run was too complex to employ just one type of MEWP.
- Large area restriction zones required which could impede maintenance & process operations.

Scaffolding
- A landing would have to be installed every 2.5m to allow for the dressing in of the cables.
- Excessive man-hours required to errect/dismantle scaffolding in advance of plant shutdown.
- The scaffold would most likely restrict maintenance and process operations.
- As well as the scaffolding team, an electrical team would have to be employed to install cables.

Rope Access
- Personnel are time-served industrial electricians eliminating requirement for scaffolding teams.
- Man-hours are reduced to an absolute minimum.
- Ropes dismantled shift end & re-rigged start of next shift lifting any work area restriction zone.
- All our access equipment requires minimal storage space - it all fits into a holdall.
- Rope access is not likely to interfere with any production requirements.
- Very minimal restriction zones required.

ASUK provided the solution, with a team of rope access technicians. All time served electricians, able to install & dress the cables quicker than errecting the scaffold alone!