WACO Africa installed floating pontoons to support scaffolding inside cooling towers
A first-of-its-kind solution consisting of floating pontoons to support scaffolding within cooling towers was recently installed by SGB-Cape, a division of WACO Africa.
Owing to capacity constraints, shutting down the cooling towers of a large energy and chemical company for maintenance was not an option and the floating pontoons ensured that 80% of the cooling tower could remain operational while repair work was performed on the other 20%.
SGB-Cape’s service on the project includes:
- Special design of floating scaffold
- Installation of floating pontoon base
- Erecting, modifying and dismantling scaffolding inside the cooling tower on the floating pontoon
- Erecting crash decks outside the cooling tower to enable maintenance work on the outside of the cooling tower to be safely conducted
- Sandblasting of columns inside the cooling tower for inspection purposes and enabling the cleaning process to be reduced by two to three days a section, compared to the use of high pressure water blasting
- Installation of lifelines and anchor points and netting inside the cooling tower by SGBCape rope access technicians
- Emergency rescue standby crews.
SGB-Cape has so far completed three cooling towers and has commenced work on the fourth cooling tower project, with each cooling tower base covering about 10 000 m2.
The company’s divisional director Louis Naude explained: “We brought in thousands of square metres of floating pontoons that floated in the live cooling tower waters, and then erected 350 t of galvanised scaffolding to gain stable access to the cooling trays at a height of 14 m.”
He continues, “We are very proud of the fact that, in a very challenging environment, there have been zero serious safety incidents since the work commenced on the first cooling tower back in 2018.”