Chemical Plant Expansion — 8,000 m²

Project Background

A specialty chemical producer expanded its production hall to add new reactor lines, and the expansion put every existing walkway into a harsher service envelope: mixed acid atmospheres, solvent vapours and chlorinated compounds that had been present in small quantities now defined the environment. The engineering team evaluated standard-grade polyester and a single generic vinyl ester, but neither matched the full chemical inventory. They needed resin systems engineered against the plant's actual chemical list — not a catalogue grade — and a delivery schedule that kept pace with a construction programme that could not tolerate steel fabrication lead times.

Design Parameters

Engineering Approach

ZeAllgrate engineers worked from the plant's chemical inventory list, mapped every platform area to its governing exposure, and assigned a dedicated resin formulation per exposure zone — rather than one compromise grade for the whole plant. The 10 formulations ranged from isophthalic polyester for the mild peripheral areas to vinyl ester and specialty grades where solvents and chlorinated compounds dominated. Each formulation was validated against the chemical resistance charts and load requirements before production, and staged lot deliveries were scheduled to match each construction phase so no area waited on another.

Measured Outcomes

• 8,000 m² delivered in staged lots with zero schedule slippage against the expansion programme.
• Resin failures — the historical failure mode in mixed-chemical plants — designed out by zone-mapped formulation selection.
• Installation proceeded without hot work permits, cutting the access risk around live process areas.
• Each delivery carried zone-specific material certificates linking resin formulation, batch and location.

What Made It Work

The project succeeded because the chemistry was treated as the primary design input. Zone-mapped resin selection, staged logistics and certified batches meant the plant got a corrosion system engineered to its real exposure — not a standard product stretched to fit. The same methodology applies to any facility with a mixed chemical inventory.

Engineering Notes

Plant-scale grating supply is managed as a package, not a product list: the drawing set fixes spans, orientation, cut-outs and clip patterns before manufacture, resin grades are mapped to each process zone from the chemical list, and the delivery is batched with certificates so site crews match panels to the drawing without guesswork. For a project of this scale, load and deflection are checked per deck zone, fire class is confirmed for rated areas, and hardware is standardised to SS316 to avoid mixed alloys across thousands of fixings.

What to Specify

• Drawing set: spans, orientation, cut-outs and clip patterns fixed at order.
• Resin per process zone from the chemical list.
• Batcged delivery with certificates; batch traceability per panel.
• Standardised SS316 hardware; fire class per rated zone.

• Drawing set: spans, orientation, cut-outs and clip patterns fixed at order.
• Resin per process zone from the chemical list.
• Batcged delivery with certificates; batch traceability per panel.
• Standardised SS316 hardware; fire class per rated zone.