Ingenious engineering to avoid civil construction time

For the Singapore Parallel Train project on Jurong Island, Mammoet was contracted to transport and install four splitter columns.

The splitters had to be loaded out at locations without suitable RoRo facilities, and island transportation and installation had to be accomplished with the least possible impact on busy local traffic.

Mixing basic physics with creative engineering, Mammoet managed to load out the splitters without having to create or reinforce any load-out points. Through precision maneuvering and a reinforced MSG crane, the splitters were installed without holding up surrounding activities.

Three of the four splitters came from a production yard in Kuantan, Malaysia, where the local jetty had to be used for loading out the gigantic splitters. Mammoet’s geotechnical survey indicated that the load-bearing capacity of the jetty was 1200 tons. This was insufficient to carry the full 1600-ton load. The fourth splitter had to be picked up in Malacca, where there was no suitable load-out point for the massive column.

In order to reduce the ground bearing pressure on the Kuantan jetty, Mammoet placed the 108-meter splitter on three sets of SPMTs. During the load-out, a portion of the weight was continuously redistributed between the trailers on the land and those on the barge. This was done using the hydraulic system of the SPMTs. In this way, part of the pressure was kept off of the jetty at all times.

The splitter from Malacca was loaded out via a beachhead created with a barge. On Jurong Island, the four splitters were brought on land and transported to their final destination at night to minimize the impact of the heavy daytime traffic.

Once Mammoet delivered the splitters to the congested site after some high-precision maneuvering, the columns were installed by the upgraded MSG80-DS crane. Reinforced especially for this project with a double-stacked boom, the MSG was able to lift the tall and heavy columns into position in the crowded refinery.

Through innovative engineering and smart application of the laws of physics, Mammoet managed to successfully load out the four splitters in spite of the challenging circumstances. Mammoet’s load-out solutions meant that no time and money had to be spent on creating new load-out facilities or reinforcing existing ones. In the shortest possible time span, load-out, transport, and installation were completed – all without causing downtime for surrounding parties.