Vanguard Transforms Moving Task
With Latest Technology

South Africa’s leading global heavy lifting and logistics specialist, Vanguard, has recently completed two heavy lift projects involving two 252 ton stators. A total of six stators are due to be delivered. Four have been shipped to the Richards Bay Harbour so far and two of these stators have been transported to a power station in Mpumalanga.

The Toshiba stators were imported from Japan and destined for the power station, arriving in Richards Bay one year apart.

The first project completed at the end of 2004 saw Vanguard moving the nine metre long, six metre high, three and a half metre wide stator across the wharf to a storage area. It was then jacked up 1m and loaded onto a beam trailer that carried the heavy load inland.

While it took two days to move the stator 40m using a jack and slide system designed by Vanguard, the company managed to reduce jacking time by almost 50% through the first-time use in South Africa of self-climbing jacks. When compared to traditional lifting tasks of this size and nature, the use of self-climbing jacks shortened jacking time by approximately one day.

“Having designed 6 rail sections with steel supports to spread the load, we created a quick-coupling attachment at the end of each piece to allow a leap-frogging action that further sped up the operation,” explains Vanguard General Manager, Andrew Nordengen.

Hydraulic rams with hydraulic clamps were used to push the load, one of the biggest moved over such a distance in South Africa to date, using four 100t Hillman rollers with specially designed heavy-load bearings.

The second project, completed in March this year, saw Vanguard employing the same equipment, self climbing jacks, rails, and Hillman rollers, to move the 252t stator.

“This project was slightly different,” says Nordengen. “The ship docked at the small craft harbour in Richards Bay and offloaded the stator using its fixed cranes. A thousand cubic metres of seawater had to be pumped into the ship in order to keep it stable during off loading.

“The stator was placed onto the rail system that we positioned next to the ship on the quayside and was moved 40m away from the water. There was a slight incline on the dock that we had to compensate for by using 22t of horizontal force to overcome the friction in the rollers and the actual hill.”

Once in position, the stator was jacked up one metre onto safety stands where it will reside until loaded onto a beam trailer and transported to Mpumalanga.

“We learnt a lot from the first job and completed this move in one day. I believe we have once again demonstrated our ability to engineer the fastest, most efficient solution to extraordinary challenges, even if it entails importing the latest available technology.

“From what we have learned in our first experiences with the self-climbing jacks, I am confident that they will greatly advance our efforts to retain a leading edge in the market,” concludes Nordengen.