Barrnon’s reputation for rigorous testing has reached new heights with the construction of a towering purpose-built test structure at our Appleby site.
The 20m test structure has been designed to replicate a segment of an underground storage tank from the Hanford site in Washington State, USA, and has been built as part of the Mechanical Waste Gathering System project to enable functional testing of the Umbilical Management System (UMS).
The test structure is approximately 10 metres square and 16.5 metres high, topped with a 90m2 safe working platform, accessed by a permanent staircase next to the main structure. The top platform has an approximate safe working load of 10 tonnes.
“The UMS is a hinged, telescopic arm which will manage the multiple hoses and cables as our Rotocutter ROV manoeuvres around the Hanford tank floors collecting stratified nuclear waste,” explains Managing Director, Andy Barr. “The UMS connects to the lower frame of the structure approximately 7 metres above ground level and this lower frame has been designed to support a 6 tonne load and the associated forces as it rotates, extends and hinges.”
It’s a really important part of Hanford’s Mechanical Waste Gathering System project as it creates a realistic simulation of the challenges faced in safely deploying remotely controlled equipment within the tanks.
The structure has also been designed with flexibility in mind, allowing it to be modified with relative ease by adding additional beams to create new mounting positions for equipment or new access platforms.