Construction of Evaporator D
Project
Highly active evaporators play a pivotal role in the delivery of reprocessing, historic clean up and hazard reduction missions across the Sellafield site. Evaporator D, a new Highly Active (HA) Liquid Evaporator will provide additional evaporator capacity to support the sites existing evaporators.
Challenges
The project has faced a number of challenges ranging from preparing a justification of the need for a new facility, and the development of a construction methodology to minimise risk to personnel and to existing buildings.
Solution
The strategy is for off-site fabrication of large scale modules which are then transported to site by sea and installed into the buildings concrete shell using a gantry system. This is the first time in the history of the Sellafield site that large- scale modular construction will be used.
Achievements
Construction of the building foundations (raft) started in May 2009 with the final concrete pour of the raft foundation being completed in August 2009. In total five pours were undertaken with 1661m3 of concrete poured.
Planning Application was granted in August 2009 for the Marine Access Development. This supports the construction of a temporary bridge over the River Ehen, earthworks on the Ehen spit and a temporary ramp to be positioned on the beach area.
The contract for the fabrication of the Highly Active and Non-Highly Active modules has been awarded to Interserve Industrial Services Ltd.
The contract for the transport and shipping element of the module delivery, including the gantry and heavy lift works has been awarded to Mammoet UK Ltd.
A Project Alliance Team Building Event held in September 2009 was hailed a great success. Over 200 personnel from both organisations (Sellafield Ltd and Costains) attended the event.
Construction work for the temporary marine access development started in August 2009 following receipt of the Planning Application from Copeland Borough Council. This work culminated in the placing of four 38m steel beams to form a bridge over the River Ehen.
Construction of the Self Erecting Tower Crane bases was completed September 2009.
The project then moved into the 'main build' phase of work in November 2009 with the most visible change on site being the arrival of the self-erecting tower cranes.
The alliance project team achieved 500,000 man hours without a single first aid case in November 2009. As part of the celebrations Charles Sweeney (COGAP Managing Director) and Fran Williams (Sellafield Ltd EHS&Q Director) presented a cheque for £5,000 to the Cumbria Flood Recovery Fund, nominated by the project employees.
A series of barge landing and off–load trials were undertaken by the Evaporator D project team in December 2009. The trials were a successful demonstration of the ability of the barge to land on the beach and off load modules.
In 2011, fabrication of the modules commenced at Interserve's facility at Pioneer Point near Ellesmere Port.
At the start of May 2011, significant onsite works had taken place in order to move the modules to the Evaporator D site, including the temporary removal of sections of the Thorp link bridge. Over 300 panels were removed ranging from 0.9m to 1.8m in height allowing for enough clearance on the road to safely move the modules.
Construction also commenced on the gantry system which will be used to install the modules into the pre- built reinforced concrete structure of the building.
By mid-May 2011, the total amount of concrete poured was 9006m3 and the amount of rebar installed was 2053Te. Construction of the structural steelwork, block work and cladding are being undertaken in parallel to this work to provide a weather tight structure for mechanical, electrical and instrumentation installation.
During June 2011 the first two of the planned eleven modules required for the Evaporator D facility were successfully transported to Sellafield site.
The modules, weighing in at over 100 Te, measure 10m high, 7.5m wide and almost 10m in length, were loaded onto the barge at Ellesmere Port prior to sailing the 90 miles north to the beach adjacent to the Sellafield site. The modules were conveyed to the Sellafield beach, off loaded from the barge and successfully driven onto site.
Installation of the two modules was completed ahead of the baseline plan.
In August 2011 the main building was made weather tight. This achievement will enable the remainder of the building works to be completed between the 26m and 38m levels.
Construction of Evaporator D
Construction of Evaporator D
Progress as of August 2010
Progress as of May 2011
