Alimak lifts off at Vietnam power station

An Alimak lift has been installed to provide access to monitoring equipment, inside the 200 m high chimney of the recently completed Uong Bi no. 1 extension power station in Vietnam.
The enlarged thermal power plant, located in northern Quang Ninh province, has begun supplying electricity for Vietnam's national grid following a three-year construction period. The power plant was the first of its kind to be designed, built, installed and commissioned by Machinery Installation Corporation (Lilama), a Vietnamese Corporation.
The initial order for the Alimak lift was placed by the Italian subcontractor for the chimney construction, Chimneys and Refractories International S.r.l (CRint). Following its successful installation and commissioning, the company is bidding for the second chimney contract on Uong Bi no. 2, which will be started later this year.
Designed to operate in demanding industrial environments, the installed Alimak SE 400 features a lifting height of I 185.4 m and equipped with the company's I rack and pinion drive system.
The Alimak rack and pinion drive system does not need an expensive machine room as the lift carries its own machinery and no load bearing lift shaft is required. In I a power outage, the lift car can slide back to I the nearest landing by gravity at controlled j speed using the centrifugal brake. If the I rated speed exceeds, the car is stopped I automatically by a safety device.
The Alimak SE ranges is available with ( capacities of between 300 and 2,400 kg, and features 30 different sized standard cars up to a maximum 1.56 m by 3 m. Travelling speeds are up to 1.0 m/sec and lifting heights can he up to 250 m with standard accessories.
The US$300 million Uong Bi no.l expansion has a capacity of 300 mW and is expected to generate an annual output ol / 286 billion kWh.