Sarens sets industry record at Oconee Nuclear Station
Sarens successfully lifts feedwater heaters into place at Oconee Nuclear Station in South Carolina, USA.
Sarens is steadily expanding its presence across North America, and are proud of recent projects completed across the continent–including the recent lifting of two heaters at Duke Energy’s Oconee Nuclear Station in South Carolina, USA. This pivotal project involved replacing two feedwater heaters, with both the old and new heaters weighing 130,000 pounds.
As Sarens planned for the project, critical headroom considerations led to the design and implementation of a temporary lifting device to be used on-site. The temporary lifting device was designed as a single failure-proof system with dual-path load carrying capabilities. A hydraulic lifter was also created to install the temporary lifting device: it would lift it 39 feet, rotate it, and place it on top of the gantry crane.
With the planning in place, all equipment was sent to the job site via six trucks. It then took the crew three days to install the equipment. As Sarens prepared for the lift, the crew knew that both time and lifting method would be the critical factors in their success. The lift required personnel to work in close proximity to rigging activities, which required the system to be single-failure proof.
The operation began once special trucks delivered the two new heaters to Sarens for offloading. From there, the heaters were lifted vertically, downended on the Sarens-provided runway, and transported to the loading dock via an overhead crane.
From the moment the feedwater heaters were disconnected to the moment they were in service again it only took 12 days–an industry record. Sarens is proud to have helped our clients achieve this milestone and safely and successfully replace these two vital nuclear station components.
We would like to congratulate everyone involved in making this project a success, from the planning stages to the pre-outage, outage, and demobilisation phases.
