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Now That's a Skip!Click on the thumbnails to enlarge Agora Services fabricated this skip to the clients design. The side and back plates are 10mm thick, whilst the base and front panel are 12.5mm thick. The lifting lugs are 40mm thick, with the rear pivot lug having an EN8 wear bush stitch welded in place. The capacity of the skip is 7.4 cubic metres, the overall weight of it empty is approximately 2.4 tonnes. The customer has told us that they test loaded it with 30 tonnes of steel, the designed working load being for 20 tonnes of concrete. The skip will be used for tunnelling. Agora also fabricated a number of heavy jacking brackets/frames for the same customer, approximately 12 tonnes in total, using a 305 x 305 x 198kg UC. Recycled Glass SilosRecycled glass silos designed and fabricated by Agora Services for RDT of Australia. These have been installed as part of a new waste recycling plant at Leyland, Lancashire. The silos have been designed to hold up to 100 tonnes of waste glass each. Construction was on the heavy side for silos of their size, being 4.5m diameter internally, and 7m height from the underside of the flange on the outlet cone to the top stiffening angle. Due to the abrasive nature of broken glass the hopper was fabricated from 8mm thick steel plate and the cylinder from 6mm plate. The overall height including the steelwork being approximately 8.4m from the base plinths. Initially RDT had specified a semi welded design, with a paint finish. Agora suggested a standard fully modular bolted construction, which would have been more cost effective to fabricate and could be fully galvanised. Concerns were raised regarding a potential build up of material on ledges in the hopper, thus a compromise solution was found. The final design was of a welded hopper, split into three section, two making up the upper section and a lower cone. These were flanged externally to prevent ledges from potentially causing hang ups of material and minimise bridging. The cylinder was agreed to be of a standard bolted construction, but the panels overlapped on the inside, again to minimise potential ledges that material could catch. The fastenings used in the cylinder panels being dome headed silo/tank bolts. Modular cylinder panels and the support steelwork could then be galvanised. However, the hopper sections were too large and thus given a hot zinc metal spray finish to the outside surfaces. As the glass material to be passed through the hoppers would be highly abrasive it was deemed that any internal coat to the hopper would be very rapidly worn away and thus unnecessary. Given that hot metal spraying is an expensive finish, the internal hopper surface was thus left plain. This is part of the much larger W2R project at Leyland, building a household waste recycling plant, to stop the disposal of household waste by landfill. Items such as glass, metal and plastic are to be separated out for recycling, the remaining organic materials to be composted. The aim of the local authority is to eventually have no disposal by landfill, thus being environmentally friendly. Garden MetalworkClick on the thumbnail to enlarge the picture. Agora have recently completed the fabrication of three garden arches and a garden rail. The arches have been made from 16mm diameter solid bar, with 10mm diameter solid tie bars. These have been made to the customers requirements, measuring 1.2m wide x 2.96m tall with 2.4m above ground. The arch itself was formed using our initial pinch rolls and the complete structure was fully welded. The rail was ordered once the arches had been installed, again this has been fabricated to the customers requirements. Initially planned as an interlocking bowtop rail, the customer came up with the idea of an elliptical arch. This created a very interesting panel. The outer frame is 40 x 6mm flat and the arches are 12mm solid bar. Overall the panel is 2.4m x 0.925m. One end will be screwed to an existing timber post, whilst the other end will attach to the upright on one of the arches using ubolts. All in all they are an impressive garden feature and have been an interesting little project. Talking to the customer they have said the idea came to them after seeing Victorian ironwork in a large stately garden. Got That Sinking Feeling!Agora Services are in the process of fabricating eight heavy duty jacking stands for a sinking concrete shafts into the ground for tunnelling. The stands are made of 305 x 305 x 158 Universal Column, and despite their relatively small plan size, they weigh in at an impressive 1.5 tonne each. We have so far completed and supplied four of these units, with another four being completed today ahead of schedule. The stands are predrilled for the jacking units to bolted into position onsite, with an additional 21 tonnes of counter balance weights to be placed on the three horizontal sections. All joints have been fully welded, 8mm fillets as instructed. To save on cost the customer supplied most of the column section free issue, having been used on a previous job, hence the additional holes. Grade 304 Stainless Steel DuctingThis ducting was fabricated to the customers requirements, with all development work being done by Agora. The ducting is 250mm inside diameter, straight sections being made from tube, and the bends being made of plate, developed, laser cut/profiled, then rolled. The vertical tubes feed product from two cyclones into the pneumatic conveying line via a small hopper and a venturi. Due to the poor flowing qualities of the product, there have been several pneumatic hammers fitted to the ducting, these can be seen on the hopper, the vertical joggle tubes from the cyclones. As Abitec had found in the past that this type of hammer can vibrate loose and fall from it's mounting plate, we also fabricated brackets to hold the body of the hammer. These could then be bolted using locknuts, thus meaning that they could not fall should they vibrate loose, making it safer to fit them at height. As part of the same project Agora made additional hammer plates and brackets, which we then welded in place on other parts of the plant. This ducting has been in one year and we understand works perfectly. Helping the EnvironmentClick on the thumbnails to enlarge, photo displayed below. Click arrows to scroll through the photos.
Test build of safety grap wire frame The frame will be site fitted with a grab wire emergency safety shut off system. Agora have recently completed the sub-contract manufacture and supply of a waste recycling conveyor for O Kay Engineering of Market Harborough. The conveyor was approximately two metres wide and twenty six metres in plan length. It was supplied built up in three sections, ready for the site installation by O Kay. The belt is made up of pressed fabricated steel slats, joined with a specially manufactured chain. The drive unit, shafts and chain were supplied by O Kay. The conveyor will be used to feed waste cardboard into a compactor for recycling. Removal of Cold StoreAgora Services successfully removed a cold store building for a existing customer, offering a considerable saving on the costs given by the original manufacturer for the same job. The project involved the use of a scissor lift and a cherry picker to gain safe access for the removal of the roof and wall panels. As the store was to be scrapped several of the panels had to be cut up during removal. The structure was a standard cold store, made up of metal clad polystyrene sheets slotted together and riveted. The store covered four bays of pallet racking, the racking being seven pallets long and three high. The three cooler units had already been disconnected and were removed by Agora. The scrap panels were stacked into skips for the customer to dispose of as required. New Loading Bay Canopy complete with ramp and dock leveller.Agora Services redesigned, fabricated and installed a new loading bay canopy for Abitec of Northampton. The original design called for the roof of the canopy to slop toward the existing building with a valley gutter and parapet wall. This design proved to be too costly, thus was altered to bring the structure into budget by sloping the roof away from the building, removing need for valley gutter and removing the parapet. The initial survey by Agora found that existing structure could not be connected to as suggested by the architects. Abitec did not want to used additional external columns, thus special haunched bracket columns were used to support the roof beams from the existing building. The overall design was interesting as the structure tapers, meaning that every column and beam is slightly different, as the beam/column connections are angled both horizontally and vertically. The foundations and the ramp were installed by a civil contractor employed by Abitec, and the dock leveller was installed by Crawfords. Agora carried out all fabrication/installation of the steelwork, the handrail, the access stairs to dock leveller, the cladding, the roofing and the guttering. Previous to the installation of the new ramp lorries had been loaded with a forklift on a external mobile steel ramp. We have it on good authority that the forklift drivers refused to use the mobile ramp as soon as new loading bay was operational! |
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Agora Services Limited, Telford Way, Kettering, Northants. NN16 8UN. Tel: +44 (0) 1536 481629 Fax: +44 (0) 1536 410193
Last modified: November 05, 2009Plate & Corrugated Silos, Hoppers, Liquid Storage Tanks, Conveyors, Screw, Planetary Dischargers, Platforms, Square Bins, Silo Cleaning, Bulk Materials Process and Handling Engineers, Grain, Wheat, Barley, Malt, Plastic, Lime, Dical, Granular Powder and Liquid Materials. General Fabrication, mild steel, stainless steel, plate rolling, welding, mig, tig, pulse, aluminium, shearing, guillotine, pressbrake, Confined Space Entry, Site Erection, Installation, Servicing, Repairs, Maintenance, Relocation, Refurbishment. Paint, Galvanise, Vitreous Enamel, Epoxy.
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