King_Street_Wharf

King Street Wharf Precinct

The King Street Wharf precinct, which is the area bound by Lime, Shelly & King Streets Sydney houses a range of commercial offices, a high-rise hotel and several restaurants of various cultures.

In preparation for the Bicentennial Celebration, the NSW embarked on a huge redevelopment of Darling Harbour which included the King Street Wharf (KSW).

Work has begun in this area in the mid1990s and was completed in 2000. Like many harbour front commercial properties, seawater is used as the means of Heat Rejection.

Pumps were installed in numerous basement plant rooms that serviced the mechanical requirements of the buildings within the precinct.

The original pumps were designed for a 102l/sec flow rate and 250kpa operating pressure. They had cast iron volute casings, backplate and impellers which were pre-heated and applied with Easyglide 954 coatings.

This was deemed to be a suitable solution at the time and had been applied extensively on valves and pumps on seawater applications and indeed was the preferred product choice of several pump companies when a cost-effective solution was required.

  • Location:
  • Client:
  • Industry:
  • Sydney (NSW)
  • Baker and Soban
  • Government

What we did

These pumps were installed in both P1 North and P1 South plant rooms in Duty & Standby arrangement. Both plant rooms were subject to high levels of service.

Replacement parts and replacement of whole pumps were actioned many times over the ensuing 16 years. Sometimes standard cast iron was supplied as time did not permit the application of special coatings. This further exasperated the service frustrations.

Pumps were long coupled to 37kw 4 pole electric motors on fabricated baseplates. Concrete Inertia bases with outriggers were suspended on 25mm deflection springs mounts.

Because of the corrosive environment, the inertia base suffered serious degeneration over the years.

The decision to change to cast Duplex Stainless was made in late 2016. This was a substantial Capex project which not only covered the pumps but the electric motors, baseplates, couplings and subframes along with the rigging, concrete cutting and laser alignment.

Two Bakerflow 2205 Duplex series of Condenser water pumps Model SWD150-32 were installed with 37kW, 4 pole electric motors MEPS compliant.

The concrete inertia bases which had suffered extensively from corrosion cancer, which was removed as they were deemed unnecessary due to the basement location. These were substituted with a subframe which was designed and fabricated by Masterflow.

Site measurements were conducted to ensure the new design subframe maintained the same centre heights and thus eliminate the need for any pipework modifications, thus minimising downtime.

Both subframes and pumpset baseplates were Hot Dip Galvanised. The coupling guards were fabricated from 316 stainless steel. Spring Mounts were 25mm deflection with Magnicoat springs especially suited to corrosive environments.

The pumps operate 24/7 with each pump working alternatively on an automatic changeover. The replacement installation was completed and commissioned in March 2017.

The outcome

The result so far has been very rewarding. Now in their 5th year, they have operated continuously without any issue or need to dismantle.

No work had to be performed on them except for routine greasing of the bearings as required under the standard maintenance procedure. This has already surpassed the previous record.

Solutions used

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