Big order book for giant UK fabrication shop

Much of the machinery on the Kvaerner E and C Manufacturing Division site is unique to the UK, while the sheer scale of the fabrication and machine shops is unrivalled outside Eastern Europe

A precious national resource: that's how the giant works operation of the Kvaerner E and C Manufacturing Division has been described.

Much of the machinery on the site is unique to the UK, while the sheer scale of the fabrication and machine shops is unrivalled outside Eastern Europe.

Moreover, thanks to the skills of the workforce and the sophistication of the equipment, Kvaerner E and C is able to apply precision engineering tolerances to work many times the size normally associated with such accuracy.

Customer demand for one of Europe's biggest and best equipped 'jobbing shops' is underlined by £3.2 million worth of contracts in a recent four week period and a forward order book already exceeding £6 million.

The Division has also confirmed its market confidence by investing some £1/2 million in upgrading one vertical borer to full Siemens CNC (computer numerical control) automation and other machinery enhancements.

The Prince of Wales Road works resulted from the marriage of Kvaerner Metals Davy and Kvaerner Markham of Chesterfield little over four years ago, which saw the introduction of fabrication facilities and job skills to the Sheffield site and a substantial capital injection of £1.75 million.

The Davy name is traditionally known for steel making equipment and Markham was long associated with the mining industry, but the sum of the parts is now far greater than the whole, with the combined operation undertaking diverse projects for Civil and Mechanical Engineering, Hydro-Power Generation, Nuclear Processing, Environmental, Marine and Particle Physics applications, amongst others.

Some idea of the variety and scale of machining and fabrication jobs that can be accommodated in this Tardis-like factory is demonstrated by recent contracts and orders.

Kvaerner E and C, for example, was the only UK company capable of machining the massive 80 tonne, 3.9m diameter x 23.5m long axle section for the new Falkirk Wheel, to the tolerances required; indeed, the finished product was within + 2mm on overall length, against the 5mm allowed by the customer.

Latterly, it won an order from Sheffield Forgemasters for a 50 tonne explosion vessel, destined for the MoD, which must be machined to aircraft industry standards; whilst a similar project for Exign Technologies, ultimately for Bridgestone Japan, involves a 140 tonne dynamometer for testing aircraft tyres and tolerances to within two thousandths of an inch.

The company has also externally and internally splined 3m long bowplane shafts for use on American Sea Wolf nuclear submarines, an application where ultra-smooth mating and silent operation are obviously at a premium.

Other 'routine' jobs undertaken of late by Kvaerner E and C include 1-3 tonne stator frames for power generation and 7 tonne rotor shafts for wind turbines; 12 tonne rope drums for carrying molten metal ladles, up to 100 tonnes at a time; open-cast Marion Shovels for the mining industry; nodes up to 75 tonnes for the offshore oil and gas industry; 1.5m long rail points in batches of thirty, for the USA; plus 7 tonne wall brackets for printing presses and high pressure valve bodies, again up to 7 tonne.

In the past, the works operation famously manufactured tunnel boring machines for the Channel Tunnel and structural components for the Thames Barrier; while bringing the story up to date, it produced 14 tonne hinge assemblies for the new Gateshead Millennium Bridge and has just received an order from Herrenknecht in Germany for 12.75m diameter tailskins, for tunnel boring machines to be used on the planned Dublin Port road tunnel.

Whereas most fabrication shops are limited by space and lifting capacity, the Kvaerner E and C facility can accommodate the largest jobs, such as the huge 8.6m diameter cutter heads for the Channel Tunnel boring machines, and the two largest cranes can be combined to lift individual pieces up to 150 tonnes.

Moreover the extensive fabrication and assembly function is fully supported with stress relieving, shot blasting, painting and testing facilities, making it largely self-sufficient.

Completing a 'one stop shop' operation, the machine shops house CNC machining centres, plano mills capable of handling components up to 14m x 4.9m, vertical boring and turning to 16.7m diameter and horizontal turning to 14m in length.

One of the most impressive facilities is an 18m x 25m slotted machine bed, which is used mainly for steam turbine casings and steel rolling mill housings; this is the largest in Europe and considered virtually priceless, especially as it enables the huge castings and forgings made by the local steel industry to be accommodated and accurately machined.

Equipped with fourteen mobile and overhead cranes, the machine shops are able to handle single lifts up to 330 tonnes and complete assemblies up to 1000 tonnes.

The single largest machine is the Waldrich plano mill, which accommodates table loads up to 300 tonnes and works at full capacity throughout the year, while Kvaerner E and C also operates the largest vertical borer in the UK, with a 200 tonne capacity.

Equally impressive is the company's gear cutting and grinding capacity, producing gears up to 3.2m diameter and grinding up to 4.75m on its Maag 480 machine, one of only three in the world.

Kvaerner E and C also boasts the attendant skills to exploit this unrivalled manufacturing resource through its highly qualified workforce, who are capable of producing small and large fabrications to the most exacting international standards.

The works operation also has direct access to the multidisciplinary engineering design and analysis expertise of the in-house Kvaerner Markham team, enabling the division to undertake complete turnkey projects of virtually any scale, throughout the world.

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