Hanson Bass Point Quarry

Brief project description

Hanson Australia, a division of Heidelberg Cement operates 73 quarries across the country that supplies quality raw materials for the use in construction. In order to meet the demand for construction materials needed in the booming Sydney construction market; Hanson started onsite works in 2016 to complete a 4MTPa quarry expansion of their quarry at Bass Point on the south coast of NSW.

Hanson required that the all equipment and structures to be built as part of this expansion be designed such that it met all of the current safety standards, was semi – automated and operated efficiently with minimal downtime. This project although local, involved an international team comprised of several original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), designers and fabricators.

This plant expansion project would utilise a number of OEMs to supply the major equipment to be used in the operation of the new crushing plant being built as part of the expansion project. The OEMs involved tasked with supplying equipment for the new crushing plant included;

• Metso for the supply of crushing and screening equipment, 
• SEW for the supply of drives and gearboxes,
• Kinder for the supply of conveyor components such as pulleys, scrapers and rollers and
• Polex for the supply of the dust collection systems to be installed on the tertiary crushing and final screen house buildings.    

The majority of the design work on the new plant was completed by a UK design firm that had previous experience in designing quarries overseas. This UK design team was responsible for the structural and mechanical design of about 90% of the plant with the remaining 10% being undertaken by an assortment of Australian based engineering and design firms. 

Fabrication of the plant was completed both locally and overseas. With the vast amounts of steel work involved in the construction of the new crushing plant, it was deemed that in order to meet the projects timeline the majority of the steel structures and conveyor gantry steel work would need to be fabricated by large fabricators based in China prior to being shipped to site. Smaller areas of the plant such as the conveyors CV27, CV29, CV50, CV51, BU08 and the precoat plant were all fabricated in the lead construction contractor’s workshop.

Finally in order to create multiple construction work fronts the construction of the various buildings was put out to tender to local construction companies to construct, assemble and wire up all the conveyors and buildings.   

Scope

Soto were involved in the following portions of construction project

• Onsite project engineering to support construction project team
• Design of conveyors CV11, CV27, CV29, CV50 and CV51
• Design of Feed Hopper 11, Feed Hopper 50. BU08 Pug mill and BU08 truck loading equipment
• Design of structures  HGV Building (BU08), Conveyor CV27 support structures, Precoat plant roof, Conveyor CV26 head support structure
• Design of foundations precoat plant, HGV building (BU08), switch rooms MCC1 to MCC4, Secondary crushing building BU03, Tertiary crushing building BU04 and Final screen house BU05.

Why Soto

Soto were selected to contribute to this project due to their capabilities in the following areas

• Project Engineering
• Design Management
• Detail Design
• Mechanical Engineering (Conveyors and bulk materials handling systems)
• Structural Engineering
• Finite Element Analysis and Discrete Element Modelling

How

This project went through a number of stages and utilised the following capabilities of Sotos

Design Management – Conveyor Engineering;

• Preparation of design specifications for conveyors CV11, CV27, CV29 Radial luffing stacker, CV50, CV51 Radial Stacker, Conveyor feed hoppers FH11 and FH50
• Project engineering to manage the design process, document control of engineering documentation, document control of detail drafting, liaise regularly with the client on engineering design progress, managing transmittals to the client. 
• Engineering detail design to develop conveyor designs from concept models to issued for construction drawing packages to be used to fabricate and install the conveyors and feed bins
• Fabrication and construction support to assess modifications made during the process to streamline fabrication or construction.
• Participation in Risk assessment and safety in design reviews to refine designs to comply with safety control requirements of plant owners and operators.
• Preparation and review of QA documentation for the fabrication, supply and construction to ensure all conveyors and feed bins designed were fabricated and constructed in compliance with the engineering specifications.
• Preparation of all engineering documentation such as engineering reports and operating settings for use by the plant owners in accordance with operation requirements.
• Commissioning support to assist operators with initial setup and running of these conveyors.   

Onsite Project Engineering;

• Assisting project and construction managers with design, fabrication and construction scheduling 
• Assisting project and construction managers with daily construction activity planning on behalf of the head site contractor
• Providing onsite technical and engineering support by managing onsite engineers, drafting personnel, contractors and assisting with resolution of design or construction issues
• Managing document control systems and registers for construction drawings, engineering documentation,  construction ITPS and fabrication QA documents
• Providing onsite technical and engineering support for commissioning activities
• Providing offsite technical post commissioning and troubleshooting support for the client Hanson directly to the Hanson Project manager
• Providing offsite assistance for the Hanson project manager for project close out   

Design Management – Plant Design 

• Preparation of design specifications for the plants new pug mill, pre-coat and truck loading plants.
• Project engineering to manage the design process, document control of engineering documentation, document control of detail drafting, liaise regularly with the client on engineering design progress, managing transmittals to the client. 
• Engineering detail design to develop plant designs from concept models to issued for construction drawing packages to be used to fabricate and assemble the new plant equipment and structures
• Fabrication and construction support to assess modifications made during the process to streamline fabrication or construction.
• Participation in Risk assessment and safety in design reviews to refine designs to comply with safety control requirements of plant owners and operators.
• Preparation and review of QA documentation for the fabrication, supply and construction to ensure all conveyors and feed bins designed were fabricated and constructed in compliance with the engineering specifications.
• Preparation of all engineering documentation such as engineering reports and operating settings for use by the plant owners in accordance with operation requirements.
• Commissioning support to assist operators with initial setup and running of the new plant equipment 

Design Management – Structures and Foundations 

• Preparation of design specifications for the steel structures for the HGV Building (BU08), Conveyor CV27 support structures, Precoat plant roof, Conveyor CV26 head support structure
• Preparation of design specification for concrete foundations for the precoat plant, HGV building (BU08), switch rooms MCC1 to MCC4, Secondary crushing building BU03, Tertiary crushing building BU04 and Final screen house BU05.
• Project engineering to manage the design process, document control of engineering documentation, document control of detail drafting, liaise regularly with the client on engineering design progress, managing transmittals to the client on structural designs. 
• Engineering detail design to develop steel structure designs from concept to issued for construction drawing packages to be used to fabricate and construct the new structures.
• Engineering detail design to develop concrete foundation designs from concept to issued for construction drawing packages to be used to prepare and pour the new structural foundations.
• Inspection and certification of onsite structures, engineering documentation and drawings from 3^rd party contractors
• Fabrication and construction support to assess modifications made during the process to streamline fabrication or construction.
• Participation in Risk assessment and safety in design reviews to refine designs to comply with safety control requirements of plant owners and operators.
• Preparation of all engineering documentation such as engineering reports for use by the plant owners to attain occupancy certification.