The latest addition to Immingham’s Rail Freight Terminal (IRFT) has required some creative lateral thinking as HBPW engineers seek to turn a building ‘inside out’……all in the cause of health and safety.
The incoming volume of combustible ‘biomass’ to the east coast port facility – things like sunflower seeds and wood pellets – is now so great that huge sheds are employed to store millions of tonnes of imported materials.
However, over time substances have to be moved around the site by truck, normally to conveyors which in turn deliver their load to waiting trains via the dock’s rail load-out facility.
Managing Partner, Paul Withers, said: “As a result of increasing biomass volumes the IRFT is now having to increase the size of its existing lorry loading facility from one to two lanes.
“In designing the civils and producing the necessary drawings, we have provided for not only double lorry lanes, but a new steel mesh grizzly onto which biomass is dumped so that it can filter through the gaps and onto the conveyors below.”
But it is the new replacement building into which lorries drive to reach the ‘grizzly’ that has required careful thought.
Normally a building’s structural steelwork is on the inside, however, in the case of Immingham Port this creates a potential problem. Dumped biomass produces dust which, in turn, gathers on ledges, those created by internal steel frames for example, and has to be cleaned off regularly, an expensive and difficult exercise.
“We had to think about all of this,” said Paul, “because gathering dust is a potential fire hazard and creates an explosive atmosphere. Consequently, by drawing on our experience at Peel Ports, we have produced drawings that enable the construction of the steel framing, columns and purlins, ‘outside’ the structure, so that we achieve smooth internal walls by placing cladding inside, thus removing any explosive threat.
“This is a multi-disciplinary project,” added Paul, “that has required HBPW engineers to think laterally and around a range of challenges from dust extraction systems to catch pits, dust hazards and the possibility of explosion.”
Planning work is currently in progress but implementation will be done as part of a planned commission in possession, when the facility will be temporarily closed down for as short a time as possible, so that all necessary work can be completed. ffffff