Richmond Pipe slings pipe handling accessory

Pipe slings (rollie cradles) are an essential pipe handling accessory for steel, coated steel and plastic pipe handling applications.
These can be used for laying welded pipe into a trench, lifting pipe over rough surfaces during dragging and driving a pipe bend during launching.

Richmond’s standard pipe sling configuration incorporates 16mm wire rope with the appropriate number and spacing of rollers to suit a single size pipe or a variety of sizes. For example the less rollers incorporated into the sling the lower the cost, the more rollers incorporated the higher the versatility. Using 16mm wire rope creates a SWL (basket Load) of 3000kg, slings generally take no more than 2 working days to assembly and official load testing
can be organised on request depending on customer’s preferences.

Custom configurations are welcomed please contact Richmond’s Engineering department to discuss your specific projects, size range and capacity.
Any capacity and/or design requirements can be accommodated. Whatever your pipe handling requirements are lets work together on building you
an Australian made solution.

In July 2013, Richmond Wheel and Castors was subcontracted by the Baulderstone Leighton Joint Venture to supply adjustable pipe rollers for the positioning and installation of Dual 660 mm water main pipes on the underside of Ballan Rd and Armstrong Rd bridges at Wyndham Vale.

The installation of the water main pipes was a necessary part of the Victorian Government’s Regional Rail Link development throughout western Melbourne – a landmark infrastructure project designed to remove major bottlenecks in Victoria’s rail network.

The development involves dedicated regional tracks to be built from West Werribee Junction to Deer Park, then along the existing rail corridor from Sunshine to Southern Cross Station including new railway stations. When complete, passengers on the Geelong, Bendigo and Ballarat lines will have a streamlined journey through the metropolitan system

Scope of Richmond’s contract

Richmond was engaged under Supply Contract WPE-CON -0212 for the manufacture and supply of permanent and temporary bridge connections for the water mains. This included:

• Permanent hanger sets;
• Temporary roller hanger sets including temporary works design;
• Temporary bridge pier rollers; and,
• Temporary trench rollers for launching the pipes under the bridges.

Design considerations

Due to physical constraints involved in the construction of the project, pipe hangers could only be placed every 7 m. The pipe involved in the project is mild steel cement-lined water pipe, which has a protective Sintakote coating. The rollers supplied by Richmond Wheel and Castors had to be height adjustable to allow for installation of permanent pipe supports. Dynamic loads were also generated during pipe launching.

Launching the rollers

The rollers supplied by Richmond Wheel and Castors for the water main pipe lengths were P/N 055 LAUNCHROLL rollers. These rollers were used to support the pipeline during welding, as well as to align the water pipe with the temporary pipe slings. The flexibility of the pipe rollers allowed for both the welding and alignment processes to be conducted without dismantling any part of the pipeline, or without compromising the integrity of the pipeline.

Outcome

Richmond Wheel and Castors designed and manufactured pipe sling rollers to successfully launch the water main pipes under the bridges and suspend them in position ready for the permanent brackets to be attached.

RWC met client milestones to ensure the project finished on time. This also included components that were permanent and had to be cast into the bridge deck slab prior to pipe launching. Rob Keens, Utilities Manager for the Baulderstone Leighton Joint Venture, said “Richmond Wheel & Castors was selected for the job because of its novel design solution which included chains, wire ropes and roller systems that were easy to install and adjust and provided a great solution for a difficult engineering task.

“Richmond supplied good quality workmanship on time which met the needs of the project. All persons onsite during the installation were extremely happy with the system and how easy and quick it was to install the water mains under the bridges.”

PROJECT DETAIL:
Country: Australia
Location: Wyndham Vale, Melbourne
Client: Baulderstone Leighton Joint Venture
Project: Regional Rail Link Project Work Package E – relocation and installation of a water mains pipe at Ballan Rd and Armstrong Rd bridges.
Task: Provide a solution for positioning and installing mains water pipe on the underside of two bridges between super tee bridge beams

The Wyndamvale installation – what was involved

Armstrong Rd Bridge: 190 m (42 slings, 44 perm hangers)
Ballan Rd Bridge: 60 m (16 slings, 18 perm hangers)
Coating remained intact with no gauging or delamination occurring
Slings easily self-adjusted to account for joints
Pulling force for 60 m bridge – 200 kg (winch only needed to idle)
All components were testing to or confirmed to Australian standards

Pipeline Construction Specifications:

Pipe type: Mild steel cement lined
Pipe coating: Sintakote
Pipe OD: 660 mm
Weight: 213 kg/m

Special sling solutions:

For unique projects often a standard solution will not suffice. For example during a large water pipe replacement project in Essendon (Victoria) the old pipeline removed and replaced. A 40m section of the project ran over a small river on top of a 100year old bridge. Due to the bridge design and access difficulties over the water way using a crane to remove/replace pipe in sections was not an option. Also because of the age of the bridge and the minimal engineering information to support the structural integrity great care needed to be taken to minimise stress to the bridge. A solution was developed By Richmond using custom chain slings with heavy duty turnbuckles for lifting/lowering the pipe from the bridge with integrated load cells so operators could quickly gauge the approximate load per sling. This ensured that each sling remained well with their load capacity and that load overall was shared across the bridge reducing stress and strain to the old structure. In a very difficult environment this solution allowed the removal and replacement of the pipe in a single 40m length without any powered lifting equipment.