In a milestone development for the industry, TAKRAF South Africa handed over a complete woodchip conveying package to Sappi’s Saiccor mill in South Africa’s KwaZulu-Natal province, featuring a unique four-conveyor double-decker walk-in type gallery, with the gantry bridge spanning some 45 m over the sulphur plant, as well two impressive ‘A’ Frame supported stockpile galleries.

The conveyors were integrated into current and new lines as part of the Wood Yard upgrade project.

With the brownfields site’ existing infrastructure resulting in stringent space limitations, TAKRAF South Africa’s successful solution included the double-decker design and engineering a high degree of flexibility into the conveying package. For example, three reversible conveyors feed two reversible shuttle conveyors to ensure that material can be conveyed to either of two stockpiles from the different chipping lines. This, coupled with automated stockpile stacking, further enhance production efficiencies.

The contract covered design to commissioning of 24 trough conveyors, 3 Redler conveyors, transfer towers and related systems. Stockpile stacking uses automated zone control, ensuring equal spreading of different wood species, while self-supporting bypass systems enable short-circuiting from the stacking route to the reclaim conveyors to reduce operational downtime during reclaimer maintenance.