Barnhart was hired to remove and replace two 200,000-pound auxiliary transformers at a nuclear plant in Illinois during an outage. The route to the transformers was circuitous and located inside the facility and would require using a slide track system.
A standard 500-ton slide system and hydraulic turntables would not work to maneuver the pieces because the transformers were two feet taller than expected. The engineering team developed a new slide system with a 4” deep slide track to minimize overall height. The team utilized pull-up gantries to lower the transformer to the track.
Barnhart also avoided overhead clearance issues using an old school plate on plate spinner design. The on-site team had over 1,000 pieces of lumber to maneuver to reduce ground bearing pressure. Manipulation to the transformers was required while sliding, which included changing the height on the plates.
The project took 1,000+ hours of Barnhart engineering time to execute. Even so, the on-site team finished five shifts ahead of schedule. The client was impressed with the move, which was the first stage of an eventual 22 transformer R & R contract.