British Steel Rail Stocking Facility
Banelec designed as custom control solution for the new state-of-the-art rail stocking facility for British Steel in Scunthorpe.
Задача
Banelec collaborated with Britcon, a leading construction and civil engineering company, to design and install a state-of-the-art £10-million rail stocking facility for British Steel in Scunthorpe. The new hub is the largest of its kind in the country and when fully stocked will hold around 25,000 tonnes of 108m finished rail.
The project began with a comprehensive consultation between Banelec, Britcon, and British Steel to understand the specific needs and goals of the rail stocking facility. It was crucial to design a system that could handle the complex operations of stocking and distributing rail components while maintaining a high level of safety and efficiency.
То, что мы создали
Our remit was to design a custom control solution to safely and efficiently allow the loading or unloading of rolling stock at this new storage facility. Due to the sheer amount of rails to be temporarily stored the rails must be handled in multiple lengths – each at 108m long.
To enable this, 11 hoist units are fitted with electro-magnets which are capable of lifting 4 lengths of rail for each lift. Operating in tandem, our system uses variable speed drives to reduce shock loading and to produce soft acceleration and deceleration movements.
Each of the hoist and traverse motions are monitored via absolute encoders and compared to each of the other hoists, this allows the PLC system to constantly monitor the positions and to automatically reduced speeds to re-align where necessary.
Установка
Banelec engineers spent several months installing the hoists, master control panel, magnet panels, energy chain systems, cabling and containment in all weathers to ensure the target date and budget was met.
Our design was to such a high standard and planned so well that no drilling of steelwork was required on site.
Результат
Following successful commissioning of the entire system, British Steel are now able to handle 25,000 tonnes of stored 108m lengths of rail destined for projects around the UK and Europe. The operation of the system ensures maximum safety of personnel with maximum efficiency.
Throughout the installation process, Banelec and Britcon maintained constant communication with British Steel to provide updates on the progress of the project and address any concerns that arose. This open and transparent approach was instrumental in ensuring that the project ran smoothly and that all parties were satisfied with the end result.