Kiln Access System

Thanks to the success of the Dubai Aluminium installation, Street CraneXpress have won the contract to design and install a maintenance access system for Fjardaal and Mosjoen Aluminium.

Working together with the Bechtel Corporation on the new aluminium smelting plant in Norway, SCX have been awarded the responsibility of designing and installing a system to access the plant’s smelting kilns for maintenance.

The aluminium smelting plant incorporates thirty-six sets of eight 5m deep kilns for smelting the metal, and each of these kilns requires regular maintenance to repair any damage caused by the smelting process.
Due to the large number of kilns, the ideal solution for access into their depths would be a mobile system that can be moved around the plant and used for all 288 kilns.

SCX Ltd have designed and are due to install a man-riding platform system with a SWL of 500kg, and meeting BSEN6037, to solve the problem.

The system consists of a mobile base frame designed to straddle a set of eight kilns, onto which is mounted a traversing and elevating cradle. This cradle can be raised and lowered into the kilns, allowing the maintenance staff full access to do their work.

The system is self powered, so that once in position, the cradle can be raised and lowered into each of the kilns, one by one, by 2 lifting ropes. The design also incorporates two back-up ropes to ensure optimum safety at all times.

Once a set of eight kilns has been completed, the cradle can then be raised up and locked into position on the base frame. This then enables the whole structure to be lifted and moved onto the next set of 8 by an overhead travelling gantry crane and 4 lifting chains mounted onto the base frame structure.

This design by SCX is a similar version to the installation completed for Dubai Aluminium, and has proven to be a very effective means of maintenance access for this type of application.