Abnormal load travels four times further to get to its destination
After almost four days on the road, the reactor was safely delivered in Ogies.
On September 19, motorists on their way to work might have come across a very strange – and very big – funnel-shaped object moving through the city.
Moving at a snail’s pace, the abnormal load was escorted by two vehicles, one in the front, the other in the back, as well as provincial traffic authorities.
What Kemptonians saw was a 10-ton process reactor for a complex water treatment plant for a mining company in Ogies, built by Prentec at its Chloorkop factory.
Prentec, a subsidiary of DRA, has been supplying high quality water and waste water treatment solutions for over 44 years, both in South Africa and abroad.
According to Bernd Klingenberg, project manager at Prentec, it took careful planning to get this precious load to its destination.
Going the shortest route, the trip would have been just over 100km but because of logistics they had to travel 390km.
The reactor height was 6.5m. However, the transport load height allowed for was 7.7m to make allowance for truck trailer height as well at the removable lifting beams attached to the reactor, said Klingenberg.
Planning involved a route survey by the appointed transporter, coordination with Gauteng and Mpumalanga provincial traffic authorities, as well as with Telkom and Eskom regarding any of their overhead infrastructure on the chosen route.
The route with the least number of overhead obstructions was chosen.
They left Chloorkop just after 6am, travelling through Kempton Park via Proton Street, Ossewa Street, Ampere Street, Bergrivier Drive, the R25, Modderfontein Road, Rienert Avenue, across CR Swart Drive on to Parkland Drive.
They then travelled via Nigel, Devon, Leandra and Kriel to the mining site in Ogies. On the open road their travelling speed was 30-40km/h.
Klingenberg said the route survey was used to identify the best route to travel in terms of bridges, as well as Eskom and Telkom infrastructure. Where it was not possible to avoid the Eskom and Telkom lines, those were lifted or disconnected as required by Eskom and Telkom.
Due to an embargo placed by traffic authorities on abnormal transport on Friday, September 20, due to the “long weekend”, the load had to stop over.
It arrived safely at the Ogies site on Monday afternoon, September 23 at 3pm, after having been on the road for almost four days.
As September 24 was a public holiday, offloading was planned for Wednesday. However, high winds on site all day delayed the process. The reactor was offloaded and safely placed into its final position on Thursday morning.
Klingenberg said it took Prentec about 10 weeks to build the reactor from specially imported stainless steel material. It is a Prentec process and mechanical design, purposely designed for use in mine water treatment plants.
Prentec has now built four of these reactors, and three are already in operation. Due to the size of the three reactors already in operation, these were transported in three sections for final assembly and welding on site. This latest reactor is smaller in terms of height and diameter, thereby allowing full fabrication and assembly to be completed in the Prentec workshop.
