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, Highrise hotel and several restaurants of various cultures. In preparation of the Bicentennial Celebration, the NSW embarked on a huge redevelopment of Darling Harbour which included the King Street Wharf (KSW).  Work begun on this area in the mid1990s and was completed in 2000. Like many harbour front commercial properties, the sea water 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 suitable solution at the time and had been applied extensively on valves and pumps on sea water 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 servicing. 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 37 kw 4 pole electric motors MEPS compliant. The concrete inertia bases which had suffered extensively from corrosion cancer, were removed as they were deemed unnecessary due to the basement location. These were substituted with a sub frame which was designed and fabricated by Masterflow. Site measurements were conducted to ensure the new design sub frame maintained the same centre heights and thus eliminate the need for any pipework modifications, thus minimising downtime. Both sub-frames and pumpset baseplates were Hot Dip Galvanised. The coupling guards were fabricated from 316 stainless steel. Spring Mounts were 25mm deflection with Magnicoat springs specially suited to corrosive environments. The pumps operate 24/7 with each pump working alternatively on 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 as 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

Sea Water Pumps & River Water Pumps

If your project is in need of a custom tank or you’d like to learn more about our buffer tanks view our complete range

Custom solutions

Our in-house design can provide you with extensive solutions for you next project. Contact us today to find our more

Masterflow CAD library

Unsure of what specification you need? Search our CAD Library for full technical drawings and specifications.