With bitumen technology specialist SAMI ever evolving and refining their processes, its plants across Queensland, New South Wales and Victoria are in the process of upgrading to make inline bitumen cutting a safer practice. Here’s how they do it.
Roads & Infrastructure sat down with SAMI’s state managers Phil Stevens from Queensland, Brad Richards from Victoria and Don McKenzie from New South Wales, to discuss the upgrades and what it means for SAMI’s customers.
Inline bitumen cutting
The process of mixing hydrocarbon cutters, such as kerosene, into hot binders to change the viscosity, comes with higher risks, especially when mixed on site.
Due to the cutters’ low flash point, it runs a risk of potential explosions or fire hazards to both the operators and workers and equipment on site.
“The main reasons we upgraded the plants was to reduce these risks in the field by blending the bitumen and cutters more accurately at our plant,” explains McKenzie. “This reduces risks to both construction crews and drivers, who require a special licence to transport these blended products as they are classified as dangerous goods.”
And, according to Richards, this change also improves the health and safety within SAMI’s plants.
At some locations, previous processes saw the cutters being brought to the loading bays in bulk containers where the truck drivers were then tasked with manually loading the bitumen into the truck under the preloaded bitumen.
The kerosene was then sucked from the bulk container into tankers beneath the bitumen for safety reasons.
“Also, if any stored cutters have moisture, this could result in the truck sucking wet kerosene into its tanker which could result in a boil over,” says Richards. “So now that we’re in the process of upgrading to an inline blending system, this removes the needs for the truck driver to do these high-risk jobs; instead, he can just pull up and we’ll simply load the product into his tank.”
With the new system of inline blending, both time and health savings are found, with the product’s quality increasing in accuracy with the use of mass flow meters.
The process
With works in the SAMI Victoria plant underway despite COVID disruptions, NSW’s plant is almost at the finish line. Works at the NSW plant is expected to be completed in early June with the complete process taking just under three months.
But the road to safe cutting hasn’t come without challenges.
“One of the biggest issues we faced was getting new equipment into the plant,” says McKenzie. “We’re installing two new double skinned lay down tanks which is also an environmental upgrade.”
The function of the double skinned tanks is to ensure containment of the product with the second layer acting as a ‘safe area’ should there be a leak from the inner tank. From there, explains McKenzie, an operator would regularly monitor the internal space to monitor for any signs of leakage.
“Besides facing the same issues with the tanks, we’ve also had to design a hazardous area around our existing loading gantry,” says Richards. “Because once you start loading cutback bitumen, the zone turns into a hazardous area, which requires us to have procedures and equipment of the correct design in place to eliminate any possible sources of ignition in the area, along with the banning of items such as mobile phones, iPads and non-DG rated forklifts.”
For NSW’s plant, inline cutting isn’t the only plant upgrade. According to McKenzie, the plant’s main loading gantry is also under upgrade, which SAMI’s Queensland plant has also recently finished completion.
Gantry loading
With SAMI’s Queensland plant having already achieved inline blended cutter capability previously, their upgrade instead featured improvements in their gantry line. This work was completed in March this year.
“Our most popular grade is C170,” explains Stevens. “It makes up about 70 per cent of what we sell, and because of that we needed to increase our output of product.”
Previously, the Queensland plant could only load one C170 product per bay at a time, which according to Stevens, would sometimes cause trucks to wait longer than desirable for the customer.
“With the extra gantry line, it means truck drivers can actually line up in each bay and get the same product at the same time,” says Stevens. “This really helps reduce congestion and turn around our products for our clients in a more time efficient manner.”
According to Stevens, this is really where the biggest motivator was.
“We wanted to be able to produce and meet our clients’ demand, particularly during peak time,” explains Stevens. “The more vehicles we can get it and out of site, the more product we can get to our clients.”
But building the line was not easy.
“The greatest challenge on our plant was the designing and planning,” says Stevens. “Because there was a lot of new pipework, it took a lot of time to actually get the line installed from one end of the plant right out to the gantry.”
For Queensland’s upgrade, it wasn’t just the fabrication and the welding of the pipeline which offered a challenge.
“It had to be designed to fit within the existing plant so there were also challenges around the routing of the pipework and where it was located,” explains Stevens. “With safety and practical concerns in mind, we also had to consider where to run the pipework allowing for the insulation and how it should run through the plant until it terminated at the gantry.”
The installation and execution of this upgrade had to also be completed with minimal interruption to the operation.
Maintaining ongoing operations while undergoing these upgrades was also part of the juggling game all three faced, however, the benefits reach beyond the plant and its operators’ functioning.
Going up with the upgrades
Now the process has been simplified for both the drivers and construction site operators.
“With our new upgraded tanks, you simply get the bitumen and the cutter, such as kerosene, from where it will flow through a pipeline and into a swirl mixer which will combine them together and then deliver it into the awaiting truck as one grade,” says McKenzie.
With the products co-mingling together in the pipeline on the plant, rather than at an exposed site with oxygen or ignition sources present, the primary safety and health hazards are reduced.
“And with increased road maintenance and safety funding coming from various COVID stimulus packages, it’s just starting to flow into the market, so that’s really added to the increased demand,” says McKenzie.
Alongside increased mandating of cutters in certain construction areas, SAMI’s client base has now expanded with the pre-mixed bitumen catering to more safety conscious clients.
The new Western Sydney airport, which is currently under construction, is just one project representing the increased demand for pre-cut bitumen. With SAMI’s NSW plant supplying our parent company Colas with AMC7 bitumen, where they have sprayed over 500,000 square metres of bitumen.
“Having this pre-blended bitumen will enable construction crews at the airport to spray a lot quicker and more efficiently on site,” says McKenzie. “Whereas before they’d have to bring a bitumen trailer on site and continuously load the bitumen, then mix the kerosene, circulate and spray, now they can load it straight into the sprayer and go.”
“It’s essentially removing the circulation process on site,” explains Richards. “For each blend that is made, it must be circulated for 30 minutes. Using this estimation, we can save our clients up to two hours of loading and blending time per day.”
Future
With SAMI taking safety seriously, the plant upgrades are just one example of the team’s commitment to improve safety for its employees, customers and drivers.
“This will really help offer pre blended products on demand to our customers,” adds McKenzie. “It is not only safer through reduced risks during loading, but it is also more environmentally friendly as it reduces the risk of spillage and contamination onsite.”
“We are very active at SAMI in the sustainability field, and this is just one more string to the bow of the products we can offer,” says Richards. “SAMI’s strength is in innovation and part of this is upgrading and refining the way we complete our operations.”
This article was published in the June edition of Roads & Infrastructure magazine. To read the magazine, click here.