Shell France dome construction part 1: The preparation

Directly after order placement the preparation for the dome construction has begun. The first step in this preparation is always a tank inspection. A professional geometer has to inspect the tank and make sure that all dimensions are accurate. After this inital step the actual engineering starts and gradually the dome takes shape on paper.

Then the appurtenances and walkway are filled in and the dome design is ready for approval .In this project it took about 3 weeks for the drawings to be finished and not too much afterward the drawings were approved and the production started. Follow this link to see the design drawing (adobe PDF format).

The production took another 8 weeks and before we knew it the dome was transported to the jobsite and ready for installation.

From our offices in Rotterdam de then transported our tool containers to the site and mobilised the crane and informed the contactor.

Below you will find some pictures of the prepararion process, click on the picture for larger format

In the next couple of days we starded to construct assemble the dome. To get an idea of how this was executed click here