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E.ON Turbine table

Customer

E.On MPP3 is an organisation established by E.On GmbH to construct the MPP3 power plant at the Maasvlakte Rotterdam, the Netherlands. The Quality department of E.On MPP3 hired SGS INTRON to assist them in assessing and minimizing the risk for all concrete construction works.

Case

One of the structures considered to be critical is the massive turbine table. This massive concrete structures is prone to thermal cracking and cold joints. Damages that are unacceptable since the stiffness of the structure is of crucial importance to serve as a support for the turbine. Since the turbine table is the largest ever to be constructed in the world, this gives rise to all sorts of risks. On top of that the turbine table had to be constructed in the middle of the Dutch winter. In this year an extreme cold winter with temperatures around 0°C during the casting period of 3 days. In order to limit the heat development during hardening a slow reacting cement type called blast furnace slag cement was selected. A good choice but at these temperatures a risk. According to the Dutch codes the casting could not take place given the conditions.

Solution

Together with the customer and the contractor SGS INTRON fine tuned the mix design of the concrete and designed a monitoring system for the hardening in order to be able to adjust mix design if needed so. SGS INTRON simulated the expected hardening and temperatures beforehand. From this an insulation plan was designed in order to limit temperature differences. The data from the finite element analysis were used to check the measured data of the monitoring system. SGS INTRON was present during the casting of the turbine table to inspect the works and give guidance on the hardening aspects.

SGS INTRON drew up a QC report of the concreting of the turbine table with a recommendation regarding the acceptance or rejection of the turbine table.