Engineering and critical equipment supply for the world’s only large-volume, drive-through dome silo in Australia.
An inflatable dome silo that is 42 metres high with a capacity to store up to 52,000 tonnes of cement is the dominating landmark of Hallett Group’s Port Adelaide green cement distribution hub.
The almost 20-storey tall structure is one of the first dome silos for Australia’s cement industry and thought to be one of the world’s first large-volume, drive-through dome silo facility. To turn this conceptual design of the dome silo into reality, Hallett Group awarded IBAU Hamburg the task of designing and supplying the required equipment for the dome silo’s aeration and material recovery system, along with the material handling, transfer and blending processes within the dome silo and the truck-loading and external material transfer from the dome silo.
Hallett Group is a 100 per cent South Australian-owned business and one of the largest integrated construction and building material suppliers to the South Australian construction industry. Manufacturing locally at its plant in Port Augusta with existing South Australian material reserves, Hallett plans to provide the market with at least 30 million tonnes of new locally sourced supplementary cementitious material (SCM) over the next 20 years.
The new SCMs add new sources for local supply and allow Hallett Group to reduce the carbon content of blended cement as opposed to traditional clinker-based cement. This gives Hallet Group the capability to supply some of the lowest carbon concrete compared to anywhere in the world from South Australia.
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The Port Augusta plant will draw on millions of tonnes of fly ash left behind by Port Augusta’s demolished coal-fired power station and use fume slag waste materials from Nyrstar’s Port Pirie smelter. The Fly ash and slag products will be milled, processed and blended at Port Augusta before being transported to the Port Adelaide distribution hub and the dome silo for final processing and distribution of the green cement, both to domestic and overseas customers.
With Flinders Port Holdings, Hallett Group upgraded the wharf at Berth 25 at Port Adelaide’s Inner Harbour to serve as its green cement distribution hub. The upgraded wharf will be a common-user berth, increasing import and export capacity, and will be able to service vessels up to an overall length of 185 metres. Besides the 52,000-tonne cement storage dome to minimise dust and other emissions, Hallett Group’s hub will have a 15,000-tonne flexible SCM storage shed and state-of-the-art on-demand green cement blending and distribution ability. The on-demand cement blending facility will accelerate cuts in embodied carbon in concrete. (Concrete is the highest volume construction material used globally.)
IBAU Hamburg, a Haver & Boecker company, is well known for its advanced silo technology and economic silo systems, silo conversions, terminals, carriers, ship unloaders, all relevant components, spare parts and services. Included in its portfolio of offerings is plant design with complete engineering and EPC contracting, supply and erection, technical supervision of civil works, steel structure and electrical and mechanical works.
The company has one principle: to always find appropriate, high-quality, innovative, customer-oriented solutions, making it well-positioned to partner with Hallett Group on the dome silo project.
Cutting-edge features
A unique and innovative feature of the dome silo facility is the inclusion of a self-contained batch-type mixing plant within the dome silo. This involves the integration of several smaller storage silos and state-of-the-art, on-demand green cement blending and distribution function complete with truck loading within the dome silo structure.
The unique drive-thru, truck-loading aspect of the dome silo effectively splits the dome silo in two. To provide the required 300 tonnes per hour discharge capacity, the resultant 42-metre diameter base of the dome silo required highly efficient and effective aeration of the massive floor space. Each half houses approximately 900 square metres of aeration pads, an IBAU cut-off gate, an IBAU lump-crusher, an IBAU flow-control gate, blowers complete with 45 kW motors and silencer hoods for silo bottom aeration.
To prevent the buildup of cement upon the internal structure that encompasses the additional storage silos, blending and drive-through/ truck loading facility, the 1000-square-metre roof space required a comprehensive array of additional air pads and a dedicated air supply for effective aeration.
The respective batch-type mixing plant and truck loading facility contained within the dome silo comprises two small day silos for dosing cement as required, three additional small raw material/ingredient silos, discharge and dosing equipment from silos to a mixing station involving two weighing bins feeding into a batch-type mixer installed underneath with a capacity of up to 150 cubic metres an hour.
The facility also contains a pneumatic screw pump to transfer blended product to provisional storage silo’s external to the dome silo, fluidslides to truck loading, a high-pressure fan and IBAU loading chutes with capacities of 420 cubic metres per hour.
The scale and depth of these features position the dome silo as a true feat of modern engineering and a shining example of IBAU Hamburg’s capabilities.