Barnhart was awarded a contract to remove and replace a vertical circulating water pump at a nuclear power facility in Virginia. The project required an upending/downending evolution to complete the lift; therefore, Barnhart’s client requested a pin-for-pin mockup to demonstrate the rigging evolution.
The pump was transported over-the-road to a facility in Pennsylvania to support the refurbishment. The pump was 46 feet long, 8 inches in diameter and weighed 92,000 pounds.
Due to site constraints that included a narrow-intake alleyway and 500,000-volt overhead power lines on both sides of the lift, the team decided to use a single crane and Barnhart’s quad block to perform the lifting operation.
Barnhart designed a custom-fabricated rigging device that allowed the upending/downending operation to utilize the pump’s existing lifting lugs.
Additionally, Barnhart employed its high-capacity turnbuckles to account for an offset center of gravity to ensure the pump was lifted level. From the start to the end of the lift, the pump was set in a single shift.