DBCT Remedials – Mobile Swing-Stage Gantry

The DBCT Terminal has over 1,800 steel piles. The essential, ongoing protective maintenance of these piles was a major source of safety related incidents, and a drain on annual Maintenance Budgets. The objective of the DBCT Pile Wrapping Remedials Project was to improve safety, quality, eliminate environmental exposure, and reduce costs associated with pile maintenance, and to prolong the life of the asset. Working in the tidal zone, you need to be able to move up and down the piles in a matter of minutes, relocate quickly along the Jetty, and avoid blasting and painting.

John Holland initiated a comprehensive process to review the access methods and protective treatment options, covering; ~ The development of an innovative jetty access maintenance solution ~ The selection and trials of various protective systems John Holland undertook a staged review/trials of both the protective treatment options and access methods. The review/trials involved the following: ~ Stage 1: Optioneering / Concept Design ~ Stage 2: Trials, Data Collection, Reporting and Recommendations enabling to proceed with the bespoke Mobile Swing-stage Gantry solution, and to utilise HDPE wrapping. ~ Stage 3: Preliminary Design of the Mobile Swing-stage Gantry ~ Stage 4: Detailed Design ~ Stage 5: Manufacture, Supply and Commissioning.

Operationally, the gantry has met all performance indicators in terms of safety, quality, environment, time and cost. The key advantages include: ~ Eliminating scaffolders working at heights over water and/or underneath operating jetty conveyors in harnesses for extended periods of time ~ Eliminating scaffolders performing repetitive hazardous manual tasks and potential manual handling injuries from building/stripping of suspended scaffolds ~ Reducing significant scaffold costs, and excessive downtime/delays from climatic and tidal conditions, or waiting on the scaffold ~ Removing blockages/restrictions along the jetty for maintenance and operational personnel ~ Reducing dropped objects into the ocean ~ Eliminating blasting and painting over water in the tidal zone.

The "Mobile Swing-stage Gantry", a bespoke design that is believed to be the first of its kind, is a simple, single piece of equipment that provides a total, rapidly relocatable access solution, replacing the traditional scaffold access and methodology used on most jetties globally. According to research, previous trials by others of alternative access options for maintaining jetty piles have fallen short of providing a “total” solution that addresses all the current concerns and issues with OHS, logistics, labor and quality. The Gantry provides a "total" solution. The simplicity of the Gantry’s engineering design, operations, its in-built safety measures, means it can be easily replicated elsewhere. In addition, the return on investment and its proven performance in terms of safety, quality, time and cost, makes it an extremely attractive innovation for owners and operators of other marine infrastructure. Designed, delivered and commissioned for DBCTM in Queensland, the innovative Mobile Swing-stage Gantry can be adopted on marine infrastructure projects elsewhere. Since operation, interest in the Gantry has been expressed by a number of other port infrastructure owners and operators nationally, and internationally.