A sophisticated control system designed and installed by Banelec is helping British Steel handle thousands of tonnes of finished rail at its major rail stocking facility in Scunthorpe.
The Brierley Hill-based electrical control systems and automation specialist worked alongside construction and civil engineering company Britcon to deliver the controls behind the £10 million facility, which was developed to provide British Steel with significant additional capacity for storing finished rail.
Capable of holding around 25,000 tonnes of 108-metre rail when fully stocked, the facility required an equally ambitious approach to material handling.
Banelec was tasked with developing a bespoke control solution capable of coordinating the loading and unloading of rolling stock while providing precise, efficient movement of exceptionally long sections of finished rail.
For Managing Director Dean Banner, the project demonstrates the role specialist control engineering can play within major industrial infrastructure.
“When you consider the scale of what is being handled, this is an impressive piece of engineering,” said Banner. “Every individual rail is 108 metres long and the facility has the capacity for around 25,000 tonnes of finished product.
“Our job was to create the control architecture that would allow those rails to be moved precisely and efficiently, with the different elements of the handling system working together as one coordinated operation.”
The sheer length of the rail created an unusual controls challenge. Rather than lifting from one or two points, the installation uses 11 hoist units equipped with electromagnets. Together, they can lift four 108-metre lengths of rail during each movement.
Coordinating those hoists requires continuous communication between the physical equipment and Banelec’s control system.
Variable speed drives provide soft acceleration and deceleration, allowing movements to be carefully controlled throughout each lifting operation and reducing shock loading on the system.
Absolute encoders monitor every hoist and traverse motion. Their positions are continuously compared, allowing the PLC control system to identify variations and automatically adjust individual speeds to maintain alignment.
In practice, 11 separate hoists can therefore operate as one precisely coordinated material-handling system.
Banner said: “Synchronisation is at the heart of the solution. With a product of this length, you need every part of the system to understand exactly where the others are throughout the movement.
“The encoders provide continuous positional information back to the PLC. The controls can then manage the individual drives and automatically make the adjustments required to keep everything aligned. It is a great example of sophisticated automation delivering a very practical industrial outcome.”
Banelec’s involvement began well before equipment arrived on site. The company worked closely with Britcon and British Steel during the consultation and design stages to understand how the facility would operate and translate those requirements into the electrical and control architecture.
That early engineering work covered the interaction between the hoists, electromagnets, drives, positioning systems and operator controls, creating an integrated solution designed specifically for the new facility.
For Banelec, this ability to start with an operational requirement and engineer a bespoke control system around it represents an important part of the company’s wider capability.
“Every major industrial process has its own characteristics,” Banner explained. “Our approach is to understand what the customer needs the equipment to achieve and then engineer the controls around that requirement.
“This project brought together PLC control, variable speed drives, positional feedback, magnet control and a substantial electrical installation. Bringing those technologies together into one coordinated system is where our engineering experience really comes into its own.”
Turning the design into an operational system required a significant on-site engineering programme. Banelec engineers spent several months at the Scunthorpe facility installing the hoists, master control panel, magnet panels, energy chain systems, cabling and containment.
The installation was completed across changing weather conditions while maintaining the programme required to meet the project’s target date and budget.
Detailed planning during the design stage also delivered a particularly striking result during installation: the Banelec system was engineered so precisely around the structure that the team completed its installation without requiring any drilling of the steelwork on site.
Banner said this illustrated the value of investing engineering time before installation begins.
“A well-engineered project should translate into an organised installation,” he said. “A tremendous amount of work goes into planning routes, equipment positions, interfaces and how everything will come together before our engineers reach that stage.
“The fact that the installation could be completed without drilling the steelwork is a good illustration of the level of preparation behind the project. Everything had been considered around the structure and the requirements of the facility.”
Close cooperation between Banelec, Britcon and British Steel continued throughout installation and commissioning. Regular communication provided visibility of progress and allowed the engineering teams involved to coordinate the different elements of the development as the facility took shape.
That collaborative approach culminated in the successful commissioning of the complete control and handling system.
British Steel gained a facility capable of accommodating around 25,000 tonnes of finished 108-metre rail ready for projects across the UK and Europe, supported by an automated handling system designed to combine operational efficiency with personnel safety.
“The end result is a control system that enables an enormous amount of rail to be handled in a coordinated and highly controlled way,” Banner said.
“It demonstrates what bespoke electrical control engineering can achieve when it is considered as an integral part of a major infrastructure project from the outset.”
Beyond its technical scale, the project provides another example of the engineering capability underpinning Britain’s strategic manufacturing and infrastructure supply chains.
Rail produced and stored at Scunthorpe ultimately forms part of transport projects in Britain and international markets. Behind its movement through the facility sits a combination of heavy engineering, automation, electrical controls and specialist integration.
For Banelec, the project joins a portfolio of complex control engineering work spanning manufacturing, power generation, nuclear, defence and other demanding industrial environments.
Banner concluded: “Projects like this show the depth of engineering capability that exists within British industry.
“You have British Steel manufacturing rail on a tremendous scale, Britcon delivering major construction and civil engineering capability and our team developing the control systems that enable the material to be handled.
“For Banelec, it is particularly satisfying to see our engineering become part of infrastructure on this scale. The control system may sit behind the operation, but it is fundamental to bringing all of that equipment together and allowing the facility to perform as it was designed to.”