Problem: Barnhart was hired to remove a Ultra Low Sulfur Diesel (ULSD) reactor that had to be brought upright before removal.
Solution: Using strand jacks and a tailing tower, Barnhart completed the lift in only 13 hours.
Barnhart's lift at an Illinois refinery involved a 1000-ton ULSD reactor--the sister reactor to one Barnhart also set in Texas. However, the Illinois project was considerably more challenging. In Texas, there was a straight shot for upending the reactor directly over the final set position. The Modular Lift Tower (MLT) was almost centered over the foundation with no need for movement or slide systems atop the MLT.
Here, the steel structure surrounding the reactor was already in place. One side was left open to move the reactor into place. The elaborate MLT had six legs, 8' girders spanning the legs, and a slide system on top to move the reactor northward. Existing heater foundations blocked the original tailing direction, so the team had to tail the reactor out into the alley and slide the reactor north 40' to 50'.
Unable to tail the reactor up from the east to the west, Barnhart had to swap directions with the reactor and bring it into the area skirt-first and at a skew to tail up west to east. Two 850-ton strand jacks lifted the load with the uprated 1330-ton spreader bar. Barnhart used new 25" wide slide track atop 8' girders and new, high-capacity sliding end trucks. The lift took only 13 hours to perform smoothly and safely and was within the 12-16 hour window promised to the client.