In March 2017, Alltype Engineering was awarded a contract by MSP Engineering to detail design, fabricate, hydrotest and load out 32 off Duplex, Super Duplex and Stainless Steel process tanks as part of the Tianqi Lithium Plant being constructed in Kwinana, Western Australia. 

Alltype Engineering prepared a completely isolated and quarantined workshop on premises dedicated to the delivery of the exotic material fabrication requirements for this project. Taking client supplied AFC datasheets, Alltype Engineering facilitated detailed design to meet the project specifications and layouts prior to nesting and optimising plate usage of this long lead and expensive exotic material.

Nozzles and appurtenances were fabricated in parallel to plate processing on our own CNC Plasma cutting bed machine. A process of continuous improvement was employed throughout the project seeing the evolution of the manufacturing process in the workshop, with raw plate entering one and leaving completed at the other on specialist trailer transport equipment.

Some areas of innovation employed included:

• Manufacture of specialised fabrication and welding jigs, to minimise distortion of this heat input sensitive material and maximise welder comfort and safety.
• Use of the latest cutting edge welding technology to improve production rates and optimise quality.
• Passivation and weld cleaning machinery and chemicals with low hazard levels compared to historical chemicals.
• Installation of a dedicated water storage tank on site to allow preparation of chemically analysed hydrotesting water for insitu hydrotesting and with water recovery to minimise water wastage and environmental impact.
• Streamlined assembly and fabrication processes removing interfaces between specialist cladding scopes post hydrotesting and ongoing fabrication works.

Given the aggressive delivery schedule for the project and transport time constraints, Alltype Engineering worked both day and night shifts on the projects, including 24 hour operations at some stages. 

The innovative and successful approach of Alltype Engineering provided confidence to the customer for capacity to deliver to an aggressive timeline and resulted in the award of the Phase 2 Tank package, requiring another 32 tanks to be manufactured on another tight time frame, facilitating round the clock works for most of 2018 after commencement.

Alltype Engineering has now established a strong industry reputation for the fabrication of process tanks and exotic materials.