At 1,250 feet high, the Western hemisphere’s largest mine superstack stands in Northern Ontario, Canada. This stack has been operational for over 40 years, over which time smelting technology has changed. Today, the gases produced from the smelting process are lower in temperature which can cause higher acid levels within the stack. These acids inevitably accelerate stack deterioration.

While this superstack had undergone previous inspections, it had not had a fully adequate inspection until ICM was able to custom design a mono-rail system for swing stage access to the entire liner exterior. With this innovative method, ICM’s inspection revealed advanced corrosion to the liner in areas that were previously difficult to evaluate.

Utilizing this information, the mine’s engineering group were able to implement a rehabilitation program that ICM developed in 2005 and which is on-going. In addition to the repairs and reinforcement of the mild steel liner, the exterior concrete column is undergoing extensive spall and crack repairs, along with underpinning at the cold joints.