Tarmac’s Dunbar site upgrades kiln

Earlier this year the plant, which is Scotland’s only cement manufacturing site, shut down production for five weeks to carry out some major maintenance projects. In450 contractors were on site, alongside the Dunbar plant team, clocking up over 65 000 man hours in a five-week period. The work to replace a section of the 60 m long cement kiln was part of a larger, two-year project that focuses on achieving enhanced reliability and improved supply for builders across the country.

The culmination of this very busy period was the removal of a giant 5 m dia. Tire that enable the kiln to revolve, as well as two sections of the steel kiln, weighing 74 t in total. Once removed, the replacement sections were lifted into place using a 500 t crane.

Dunbar Cement Plant Manager Oliver Curtin says: “For us, replacing sections of the kiln is the largest-scale maintenance job we do here on site. We have to shut down the kiln and stop production so we also have to plan ahead for product supply and ensure our customers are not affected.

“It takes a large team of experts months of planning and preparation to pull this project together. We are delighted with the way it has gone with the whole site team pulling together with specialist contractors to complete it with safety the first consideration all the way through. We were quickly back up and running and into production.

 

“The short timelapse film that has been produced gives a really good impression of the scale of the kiln shell replacement work, part of our major enhancement programme. Viewers can gauge the size of the kiln section by looking at the size of the people managing the lift!”

Read the article online at: https://www.worldcement.com/europe-cis/04052017/tarmacs-dunbar-site-upgrades-kiln/