HDG Plant Design
HDG PLANT DESIGN
Sizing & Layout Tool
Designed & engineered by Aladdin Mohammed
Interactive Design Tool

Size the plant around the kettle.

Enter your market profile and the tool sizes every downstream element — kettle, zinc inventory, chemical line, building, and crane — using the formulas from Plant Design Fundamentals. Values flow forward: set the cycle time and charge weight once, and every dependent calculator updates automatically.

No engineering knowledge needed — location, product & annual target.

Investor Plant Planner

Step 1 of 2 — project basics

For investors and non-technical decision-makers. Tell us where, what you'll galvanize, and your annual target. We size a single plant (one kettle) to that target and estimate the parts you choose to cost.

1Project basics
2Details
3Proposal
1 · Location
2 · What will you galvanize? *
3 · Annual output target *
t/yr
4 · Fuel
5 · What should we cost? select one or all — land is excluded
6 · Available area *
m²
Net-area brackets by annual output: ≤15,000 t/yr → 4,000 m² · 30,000–60,000 → 8,000 m² · >60,000 → ≥12,000 m². Gross plot must also allow the 6 m wall setback and ≥30% free space in industrial zones.

Your project so far

Plant configuration

Automation level
Environmental standard
Kettle origin
Optional equipment

Market & Throughput

§12.1.2 — Sizing for capacity

The kettle cycle time drives everything. Work backwards from your target annual tonnage to size every piece of equipment. These two values — cycle time and average charge weight — feed the whole tool.

Inputs

min
%
min
t
d/yr

Capacity

Charges per day—
Daily throughput—t/day
Annual throughput—t/yr
Daily t = (Avail × Eff) ÷ Cycle × Charge wt  ·  per kettle
Heavy structural work with long immersion (6–8 min) cuts throughput sharply vs. light fabrications. Adjust the cycle time to your real mix.

Kettle Sizing

§12.2 — The plant's heart

Everything is sized in relation to the kettle. Enter the largest single piece your market requires you to dip, plus the bath reserves, and the tool returns the recommended internal dimensions and the usable working depth.

Largest piece & clearances

m
mm
mm
mm
mm
mm
mm

Recommended kettle

Working length—m
Internal width—mm
Total depth—mm
L × W × D—
Total depth = work depth + freeboard + dross reserve

Zinc Inventory

§12.2.4 — The largest single capex

Kettle volume directly drives the zinc bill — the biggest capital item in the plant, sitting on your balance sheet from day one. Molten zinc at 450 °C ≈ 6.57 t/m³.

Inputs — prefilled from Kettle tab

m
m
m
×

Zinc capital

Kettle volume—m³
Zinc inventory—t
Indicative value—
$/t
Zinc mass = Volume × 6.57 × Fill factor

Chemical Line

§12.3 & §12.5.2 — Keep the kettle supplied

The pretreatment line must prepare work fast enough to sustain the kettle cycle. Idle kettle time is the most expensive inefficiency in the plant. This sizes the pickle bank, the charges in process, and the crossbeam fleet.

Inputs

min
×
min
min
no.

Line requirements

Pickle tanks (min)—
Charges in process—
Crossbeams needed—no.
Pickle tanks = (Pickle ÷ Cycle) × SF  ·  Charges = Line ÷ Cycle
Crossbeams = charges + loading + de-rig + reserve
Well-run plants carry 10–15 crossbeams in practice to cover varied job sizes. The reserve input above includes the load + de-rig allowance.

Building Dimensions

§12.6 — Designed around the process

Hook height is a calculation, not a rule of thumb — confirm it before any structural design. The zone lengths below sum to a minimum building length for a linear arrangement.

Hook & eave height

mm
mm
mm
mm
mm
mm

Heights

Min hook height above bath—mm
Min eave height above floor—m
Hook = work + crossbeam + gear + safety  ·  Eave = hook + crane + clearance + bath height

Zone lengths — linear arrangement

m
m
m
m
m
m

Footprint

Min building length—m
Typical width range18–28m
For a U-shaped layout the two legs share the length and the width roughly doubles — similar footprint, different shape.

Crane SWL

§12.7.1 — The plant's nervous system

The crane must lift the heaviest load it will ever carry — usually the crossbeam fully loaded with the maximum practical charge, not the average. Always round up to the next standard capacity.

Inputs

kg
kg
kg
%

Crane specification

Calculated minimum—kg
Specify SWL—t
SWL ≥ (charge + crossbeam + gear) × (1 + margin) → next standard size
Standard sizes: 2 · 3.2 · 5 · 8 · 10 · 16 · 20 t. Kettle change-out (30–80 t vessel) needs a separate heavy-lift provision — raise it with your crane supplier at design stage.

Plant Profile

§12.8 — Concept layout summary

Every result, gathered into one card. This is your concept-stage design basis — the single most important document in the project.

Tip: edit any input on the other tabs and this profile updates live. Linked values (cycle time, charge weight, kettle dimensions) propagate automatically.

Reference Tables

Chapter 12 benchmarks & portfolio data

Sanity-check your numbers against the chapter's benchmark ranges and real plants from the author's portfolio.

Current portfolio — three markets, three designs
PlantKettle L×W×DMarket focusAutomationFuelCrane
Plant 16.5×1.2×2.2 mMed/small structural + cable trayManualDiesel2.5+2.5 t
Plant 215×2×3 mAll structural (med + heavy)Semi-autoLPG10+10 t
Plant 31.6×1.2×1.5 mFasteners, bolts, nuts, washersFully autoLPG1+1 t
Typical kettle length by market segment
Market segmentMax piece lengthRecommended working length
Light fabrications, small structures5–7 m6–8 m
Medium structural, fabricated frames8–10 m10–12 m
Heavy structural, long beams, purlins11–13 m13–15 m
Infrastructure, bridge elements>14 mCustom
Minimum dip times by process stage
StageMin dip timeNotes
Degreasing10–20 minCaustic/alkaline 60–80 °C
Rinse 11–2 minRemoves alkali carry-over
Pickling20–60 minHighly variable — scale, mass, acid conc.
Rinse 21–2 minCritical — protects flux life
Flux2–5 minZnNH₄Cl 60–80 °C
Drying furnace8–15 minPrevents steam explosions
Zinc inventory by kettle size (fill ≈ 0.82, 6.57 t/m³)
Kettle L×W×DVolumeZinc inventory
8 × 1.2 × 2.0 m19.2 m³~101 t
12 × 1.4 × 2.2 m36.9 m³~194 t
15 × 1.6 × 2.5 m60.0 m³~316 t

Components Database

Single source of truth — feeds the Investor cost engine

Every plant component with full detail and estimated price, extracted from real quotations. The Page 2 cost engine reads its prices from this table. Prices show in EUR/USD/SAR (rates: €1 = $1.08, $1 = SAR 3.75).

ComponentCat.AreaScopeSpec / details Unit priceCurQtyLine (USD)Source
Edit any price or qty inline — the Investor cost engine recalculates live from these prices. Use + Add component / the × button to add or remove lines. Edits persist in your browser; Reset restores the original quoted values. Catalog totals above = qty × unit (your manual bill); the Investor flow auto-sizes quantities itself.