News
Silo Cleaning Service
Pardon the Punnet, but it's all in the Brew!
Agora Services clean silos for various industries, whether it be food and beverage or plastic injection moulding. Three recent jobs have included a packaging company, a cereal manufacturer and a brewery.
The packaging company manufacture plastic packaging for the food industry, in particular punnets for soft fruit, tomatoes, etc. As they wanted to change the product stored in a number of their silos, Agora inspected and cleaned out the dust and last remaining pellets. Thus, avoiding contaminated materials that would cause faults it the packaging. Any contamination can cause large batches of plastic mould products to be rejected, thus causing lost time and production.
We have also worked on the malt grist silo for a brewery, prior to engineers modifying the outlet to the mash tanks. As the malt has been milled into the grist (a coarse malt flour) there is a lot of dust left in the silo that could cause problem for the engineers working on the silo. Thus, Agora vacuumed out the final residue for the work to be carried out without the risk of falling particles. As the brewery have an onsite shop/visitor centre we thought it would be rude not pay it a visit and buy a few samples of their brew. Must say that the bottle tasted so far is a rather nice beer, quite looking forward to tasting the other beers bought.
The third silo cleaning project was for a breakfast cereal manufacturer, as they wanted to store organic wheat in a silo previously storing standard wheat. To avoid cross contamination the silo was cleaned down and the final residue vacuumed out of the hopper.
Silo Revisited!
Major silo repairs as old silo gets an upgrade
Agora Services have replaced the top two thirds of a silo for Cargill plc at Hull during their summer shut down. The original silo had been in service for approximately 25 years and was showing it's age. The top rings of panels and the roof had been subject to corrosion from the moisture levels of the stored meal. Plus it was found that hexane used in the oil extraction process was far more corrosive than had previously been thought.
The roof itself had been replaced approximately 13 years ago by Agora, when at the time it had been thought that the corrosion was caused by pollution from the neighbouring factory's chimney. At the time the silo structure was in good condition, with some rust staining on the outside of the panels. The majority of which had been caused by the roof.
The recent project had been undertaken after a survey of the silo panels revealed that the structure was in need some major repair work. It was deemed that replacing panels would not suffice as the number to be replaced and the time constrictions of the summer shut down meant that the silo would not be ready in time. Thus, after discussing the options with Cargill it was concluded that the safest and best way forward would be to replace the top two thirds of the silo completely. To do this the new section was built on the adjacent yard area and then craned onto the old silo.
The new roof has been made from stainless steel grade 304 to prevent corrosion again, as the roof is subject to the majority of the condensation problems experienced. A gasket material being placed between the stainless and galvanised structures to prevent electrolysis causing the panels to rust prematurely. Also, nylon washers have been used to separate the stainless nuts bolts and washers from being in contact with the galvanised silo panels.
Another alteration to the original design has been to upgrade the panel thickness of the cylinder. Again, this has done to prolong the life of the cylinder given the corrosive nature of the stored product.
The installation work was carried out quickly and successfully, despite the Great British summer! Problems had been encountered thanks to the wind and rain, meaning that time was lost when installing the bird spikes to the wind rings and installing the ladders. Thus, the silo was lifted without all the bird spikes and with some work remaining on the ladders.
Fortunately, the big lift was planned and executed perfectly, with minimal wind and rain. Had this been put off to finish the ladder and spikes, the wind would have meant that the silo would still be in the yard. The following day the wind had grown stronger and would have prevented the lift, causing a delay that could have been very costly. The crane used to lift the silo into position was a 500 tonne Liebherr, with a 100 tonne crane for the man access basket. The lifting rig or spreader was designed and fabricated for the silo, giving five lifting points using chain blocks to give a variable lift. Meaning that the balance could be adjusted so that the silo landed at the correct point where it could be accessed from the scaffolding.
The flange joint between the two sections worked perfectly, meaning that fixing down the new silo was simple and quickly done. The bolt holes were lined up using tapered drifts with little effort in the most places, only a couple of the joints in the angle needed more than pulling by hand and these were not an issue.
We feel that this was a good job, done within time and safely.
Helping to Put the Curve into Art
Local sculptor Mick Henson came to Agora with a project that need to be curved. The project involved rolling 6mm plate steel, which was then plasma cut to Mick's templates for each individual component of the sculpture.
We helped Mick to roll the plate and set him up in our workshop with our plasma cutter to profile each component by hand. The result being an unusual and impressive work of art, as can be seen from the above photos of the sculpture being piece together.
The project has now been completed and we have receive some more pictures of the installed work at Isebrook School in Kettering.
For more information on Mick and his work please visit his website at http://www.mickhensonsculptures.co.uk
Aluminium Access Ramp
We have put our pulse welder to good use, fabricating a light weight access ramp for a project in Scotland. The design and brief was given by our client, initially for a galvanised steel ramp to allow pallet truck access over a step. However, given the weight of the steel ramp it was suggested that an alternative would be to use aluminium, allowing operatives to move the ramp by hand as and when required. The brief being that the unit would need to be easily moved to allow vehicles or forklift trucks to pass through the area with minimal disruption.
The ramp itself was made from 6mm on plain treadplate, split into three manageable sections. These then locked together with a steel pin dropping down two sides, meaning that the ramp could be quickly assembled or removed without the need for tools.
This is a Sweet Job!
Alterations to a Stainless Steel Melt Tank & Stainless Steel Vacuum Oven
We are currently working to alter a used melt tank and a vacuum oven for a client. These are both separate projects, but through the same consultant.
The melt tank has had the original agitator and geared motor removed, and some welding/repair work where cracks had been found and existing opening blanked off where no longer required. There will be a new heavier duty geared motor to fit, complete with new brackets and motor supports. This will drive a new stirrer and scrapper unit inside the tank. The existing support steelwork was mild steel with a painted finish, this is being replaced with new stainless steel support legs with bracing and fitted with load cells. What will the tank hold/mix when it finished? A substantial amount of chocolate, certainly enough to keep the kids busy for a while anyway!
The oven has been completed, with the angle rails inside having been moved to give different tray centres, the addition of a drain pipe and repairs/replacement of the existing pipework. This also required rethreading the hose connects inside the vessel and drilling and tapping some of the fixings for the internal racking.
Stainless Steel Washstand and Bath for Printing
Another recent project completed by Agora has been the fabrication of a stainless steel washstand/easel for the cleaning of printing templates. This will be the third such washstand that we have made for this customer and by far the largest at 2.5m wide. The template hooks over some brackets on the easel allowing the operative to wash it down with water. The complete stand including the hollow section legs is made of grade 304 stainless steel, with all welds and edges having been linished smooth to remove anything sharp that could damage the templates.
The bath has been made to clean the print head of a new 2.4m wide printing machine the client has purchased. Currently at 2.6m long and 0.5m wide, it was made to the customers specification. The bath itself is stainless steel, again grade 304, but the support frame was mild steel hollow section with a painted finish. The frame has been mounted on casters for manoeuvrability.
Plastics Silo Cleaning
Agora have been asked to clean a number of aluminium plastics silos used for the storage of various plastic pellets and powders for the injection moulding industry. This has been for the upvc windows / doors, the automotive and packaging industries.
Whilst there is little requirement for cleaning plastics silos due to the nature of the stored product, unlike the food industry mould and infestation are generally not a problem. However, contamination in a plastics silo can be a real problem for the injection moulder. A tiniest speck of rust or contamination can ruin a complete batch, as it can streak through the lot. Thus, in many cases, rendering the batch completely useless and having to be scrapped.
Provided that the same product is stored in the silo there is little need to clean it, but if the product needs to be changed it is advisable to clean before putting the new materials in. The same can be said if there has been contaminated product in the silo, for example the material has been blown into the wrong bin in error. Agora has experience of emptying contaminated plastic pellets from silos and cleaning them to reduce the risk of product rejection.
We can clean on an as and when required or one off basis, providing risk assessments, method statements and a full written report upon completion of the work.
That's a Load of my Mind! UPDATE
The second and final silo has now been fitted with load cells and both are now ready to be wired up by the customer. Once this has been completed and the silos tared they will be ready for material storage. The system will then allow GPS to know how much material they have in each silo, meaning that they can plan loading and production with a greater accuracy. Each silo has been fitted with three load cells rated at 30 tonnes each.
Recently installed load cells retro fitted to an aluminium Braby silo for a GPS. The project involved fabricating the channel stiffeners and bridge pieces to accommodate the new Applied Weighing load cells.
Agora looked at the problem of retro fitted these silos with load cells in various ways.
First, you can lift the silo and place a rolled ring under it with the load cells bolted underneath. The problem being that either a crane or heavy duty jacking rig is required to lift the silo high enough to get the ring under. The obvious problems being that the jacks would be in the way of the ring, making it difficult to fit. Also the two silos are linked by a footbridge and pipework, which would have to be removed. There are also six more pipes the load/unload from the silo, which would have to be lengthened or shortened accordingly. There is the additional cost of the cranage, having a ring rolled, fabricating the support ring with joints and strengthening gussets. We would also have to change the anchor system, as the existing anchors would not have been long enough. All of which adds to the cost of a retro fit system.
The second way to fit them is to cut back the base angle and skirt to accommodate a bridge support, as you can see in the photos above. This has meant that we only had to lift the silos by 20mm to give the load cells enough ground clearance. We could also still use the existing anchors, by just backing of the nuts and fitting an extra locking nut, meaning that the silos still had adequate holding to prevent over turning. The load cell bridges are a simple construction, made in aluminium and fully welded in place. To stiffen the silo skirt and help transfer the weight directly down to the load cells, a pressed aluminium channel was fabricated. These were welded on both the inside and outside of the existing panel. Once the structure was fully welded, the load cells were fitted and silo levelled. The lifting of the silo was carried out using our toe jacks, again saving additional costs for GPS.
Welding was carried out using a pulse mig welder, as the thickness of the top plate of the bridge was 25mm. Whilst it is not as ascetically pleasing as tig welding, it is quicker and more suitable for the thicker aluminium plate.
High Flying Jetter Setters?
Our latest high level cleaning project has been to externally power wash three white fibre glass silo for a local food manufacturer. To complete this task Agora used a 22m diesel stick boom lift and a 20m diesel articulated boom lift mobile elevated work platforms (mewp, commonly know as a cherrypicker). As the site was an organic manufacturer no chemicals were used, only high pressure cold wash jetters.
We had been lucky, winds were low and the weather was perfect for the task, a little overcast and not too sunny. It is surprising how difficult it can be to look at something white for a prolonged period in brilliant sunshine, especially when you are cleaning it! The high pressure water jets, at approximately 200 bar, removed the film of dirt and dust quite easily. With the weather on our side the task was completed ahead on schedule, meaning that we could save the customer money by reducing the labour costs.
As part of our work Agora have been trained and certified to use access equipment such as a telescopic and articulated boom lift, scissor lift or tower scaffold. We also have manriding winch access equipment, which is used for confined space access, Agora currently have Proman Digital winches with shearleg tripods and Didsbury Deco 2000 winch where access is very confined.
For more information on silo cleaning or high level work please contact us.
Safety Guards for Pallet Saw
Agora recently fabricated two sets of safety guards for a local company manufacturing pallet saws. These guards fit over the circular saw blades on a machine that cuts the corners of pallets. As we understand it, these machine are in very heavy use so the guards had to be quite robust.
The sides were laser cut and the back rolled into shape.
All told this was quite a nice little job.
Heavy Weight Charger Boxes
Fabricated to the customers specification these boxes are designed to house battery chargers in a harsh environment. They are made up of an angle framed box with plate welded to the base, the top, the back and side panels. The front panel being removable for access to the charging unit. Air vents have been cut in the base plate and in the back plate.
All external welds are full to seal against the elements, the top panel being folded to provide a rain water lip, and the air vent in the back panel being fitted with a weather cowl.
The front panel has been fitted with a hinged door so that operatives can access the controls of the charger, kept closed with latch pins. The bottom of the panel was fitted with removable cover plates to allow access for cabling on the first two units. Three subsequent units had these fitted to one of the side panels at the request of the electrician.
Hollow section feet have been fitted so that the units can be moved by forklift. There is also the addition of a lifting eye on the top, welded direct to the angle frame inside the box, for lifting with a crane.
Each box weighed in at approximately 650kg.
Silos on the Move - The Final Installation!
Agora Services have now completed moving six aluminium silos for GPS and Durapipe, with the last four now being installed at the Durapipe site in Kent.
The project included the fitting of an aluminium ladder and rest platform on one silo, as pictured above. The safety cage was manufactured at our Kettering factory as a modular bolted system, with the rest platform being a welded aluminium structure. Fitting the ladder and platform to the silo wall meant welding bracket plates in-situ whilst the silo lay on it's side awaiting installation. Bolting the ladder, the platform and the safety cage to the silo prior to craning the silo onto the concrete base.
As the silo base/foundation was to be on an existing concrete slab, the anchors for the silos had to be predrilled and chemically set with resin before lifting into place. Positioning the anchors accurately meant that the erection of the silos went without a hitch. Preparation was a key factor as the first three silos lifted up and anchored within a day using two cranes.
The row of three silos still uses the original access ladder.
Silos on the Move
Agora Services are currently in the process of moving six aluminium silos for a customer from one site that is being closed down to two other sites. The project involves the taking down and transport of the silos to their new installation sites, the fabrication of new caged aluminium silo ladders complete with rest platform and pneumatic conveying pipework.
So far two silos have been moved, with work carried out to install the new ladder. Pipework has been installed to fill the silos from a bag tip within the factory and a separate tanker fill point. Material will be drawn from the silo by vacuum through a drier and onto the extrusion lines.
A Hole to No-Where!
This heavy weight beasty is a tunnelling shield that will be used to free up another machine that has become stuck below ground. It may be quite small but still weighs in at an impressive 3.5 tonnes (approximately) and once it has done it's job we have been told will be buried never to be seen again.
The shell was supplied by our customer and had to be altered to accommodate the hydraulic rams that will push it forward into the earth. The soil will then be cleared by hand and a tunnel lined behind it, not a job for the clostraphobic!
It is rather sad to think that this will be it's last job and will be discarded.
Now That's a Skip!
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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 Silos
Recycled 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 Metalwork
Click 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 Ducting
This 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 Environment
Click on the thumbnails to enlarge, photo displayed below. Click arrows to scroll through the photos.
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 Store
Agora 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!