HLPFI reviews the shortlisted entries for the 2023 Excellence in Engineering award, sponsored by DHL Industrial Projects.
Our judges were looking for a transport engineering team that, during the last 12 months, has demonstrated its ability to overcome unusual transport and installation challenges, using customised engineering solutions and deploying innovative engineering methods to maximise the potential of equipment.
The shortlist for the Excellence in Engineering award 2023:
AAL Shipping
In the past year, AAL Shipping’s engineers designed over 120 customised handling and transportation solutions for over 2.6 million tonnes of cargo worldwide. From 60 m cranes and 120 m wind turbine blades to 400-tonne generators and bulk commodities, the engineers at AAL routinely parcel diverse multipurpose cargoes for upward of 30 shippers on a single sailing.
Çaba & Misnak
Çaba & Misnak completed a major project in Turkiye, delivering more than 130 out-of-gauge cargoes for a new petrochemical plant. Çaba & Misnak transported the items from Mersin Port to the project site, located approximately 56.7 km away. The oversized cargoes passed through an urban area thus requiring extensive engineering to navigate 10 overpassing bridges, three overhead bridges, three overhead pedestrian bridges, 67 overhead structures, 142 power transmission lines, and numerous items of street furniture.
Hareket Heavy Lifting and Project Transportation
Hareket handled the logistics for the subsonic wind tunnel project on behalf of Turkish Aerospace in Ankara. The work involved loading equipment, weighing up to 218 tonnes, at the assembly area as well as transporting the cargoes to and unloading them at the final position. In addition to the cargo’s complex shape, Hareket had to overcome site limitations which restricted the use of the crane by using climbing jacks. Two beams were specially designed to raise the equipment in conjunction with climbing jacks to enable trailers to move under the pieces.
Mammoet
Mammoet developed a bespoke engineering solution to protect delicate coral reef while delivering overwater pod-shaped villas from Sharjah, UAE, to the remote Sheybarah Island, off the coast of Saudi Arabia. Manufactured by metal production specialist Grankraft Industries at the freezone port in Hamriyah, the 38 overwater villas weigh around 150 tonnes, with the smallest measuring 18 m in diameter. The unusual orb shape and centre of gravity posed the biggest challenge for Mammoet, which had to deploy large number of engineering techniques to complete the work.
Osprey Group
Three years of engineering resulted in Osprey, in collaboration with EDF, developing a static ro-ro solution for receiving Hinkley Point C’s reactor pressure vessels. While working to the strict standards of the nuclear industry, Osprey’s solution required a combined civil and marine approach with a raised berth bed, flood defences and a novel sized barge, which had to ballast low enough to enable ro-ro loads whilst also being high enough to allow static ro-ro. In addition to increasing the practical window for deliveries from 1.5 hours (floating ro-ro) to around 6-8 hours, the solution overcomes the large tidal range of the connecting rivers and future proofs marine access for the power station.
Scaldis Salvage & Marine Contractors
Scaldis Salvage & Marine Contractors installed six massive prefabricated concrete water intakes – four intake heads and two outlets – as part of the cooling water system for the Hinkley Point C nuclear power station. The four water intakes, each weighing 48,00 tonnes, were installed using an industry first tandem lift, executed by two heavy lift vessels (Rambiz and Gulliver) and a nine-point lifting anchoring pattern in challenging environmental offshore conditions. To be fully prepared for the job, a multi-year detailed engineering process was undertaken, including in a 3D simulator set-up with sessions for all crew and staff as well as a real-scale trial lift offshore the coast of Ijmuiden ahead of installation last summer.
The winner of this year’s Excellence in Engineering Award will be announced at the Heavy Lift Awards 2023 ceremony on October 25 at the Royal Lancaster Hotel in London. To join the celebrations, book your space today.
