Bulletin 1/2010 - Siempelkamp NIS

SIEMPELKAMP | FOUNDRY
Night-time road transport
Once a casting has left the Siempelkamp Foundry by truck and
is on its way to the port via the German freeway system, the
order processing departments of the foundry and the involved
freight forwarding company have already completed their tasks.
By carrying out tasks such as the route planning, the permit
procedures and the time scheduling for individual transports,
Siempelkamp Foundry has added valuable services to complete its
portfolio.
Basically, the same procedural steps are required before each
transport. However, especially the extra large and heavy castings
pose greater individual challenges for the involved planners. This
report describes these diffi culties with an example of a grinding
table for a cement mill which was cast at Siempelkamp Foundry in
2009.
Grinding table on tour
Key data for the large casting, which had to be transported from
Krefeld to the machine shop in Karlsruhe, included a raw
casting weight of 142,000 kg (156.5 US tons), a diameter of 6.15 m
(20.2 ft), and a height of 2.65 m (8.7 ft). A car needs around four
hours to cover this distance of approx. 370 km (230 miles). Unfortunately,
a grinding table and a car do not make an ideal team.
The transport of our casting by truck requires a trip time of two to
three days. The transport can only take place at night between 10
p.m. and 6 a.m. Furthermore, a police escort is mandatory for
such transports. In the case of an unforeseen police operation, the
transport comes to an involuntary stop until the operation has
been completed.
Before a casting can leave the foundry, precision planning work
has to be carried out. Since Siempelkamp does not operate
a truck fl eet, the company commissions a freight forwarding
company with transports. For the transports of large components,
such as our grinding table, the freight forwarder has to obtain
special permits from the appropriate road traffi c authorities.
The transport route is examined carefully
When applying for these permits, it is not enough to only state
the destination point of the casting, but to describe the entire
transport route in detail. For this, the freight forwarder determines
the best route. This route is test-driven with a car in order to
review the actual conditions along the road. Everything noteworthy
is recorded. This includes traffi c lights or road signs which
narrow the road and make a passage impossible. Such obstacles
would be disassembled for the duration of the transport and
reassembled afterwards.
Likewise, every bridge along the route is given special attention.
Is the bridge capable of supporting both the weight of the casting
and the truck? If the route seems reasonable to the freight
forwarder , all details of the route are put into the permit application
before submitting the application to the appropriate authority.
The next step in the process is in the hands of the offi cials. The
application is considered by the road traffi c authorities. Since the
jurisdiction over the road network in Germany is divided into
separate precincts, a number of different authorities are involved
in the approval process. Each authority has the statical calculations
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