Steel industry Tata Steel

Complex Renovation Plakken Hal Crane 23

TES Industrial Systems was contracted by Tata Steel to modernise a Plakkenhalkraan 23 (PHK23) in a period of 16 weeks.

TES Industrial Systems took on the role of main contractor for the complete modernisation, consisting of full maintenance, renewing the drives, electrical installation, controls and cabin, including a new operator cabin.

To renew the drives we installed new motors and revised the existing gear units. In consultation with the client, Tata Steel, and the subcontractors, we decided to carry out the modernisations in Rotterdam.

The two main reasons for this were the conditioned environment for maintenance and the comprehensive modifications to the beams. With the upgrade of the cooling installation, a considerable number of feed-through channels could be created in the beams. The crane was transported over inland waterways to Rotterdam and after a reconstruction period of 10 weeks, was returned to the industrial building.

The drive and control units were configured redundantly, completely following the Tata Steel philosophy. Because PHK23 is a critical link in the operational processes of the oxygen steel plant, all necessary drives were duplicated and the crane can be moved to a safe position without PLC. By using the redundant position transmitters, the crane is ready to function (semi)automatically in the future.