CAMI Automotive

CAMI Automotive is the largest Canadian/Japanese joint venture automotive plant in Canada. HH Angus provided project management and served as Prime Consultant for the design of the buildings, building services, site services, storm water management system, waste water treatment facilities, and a new rail spur. 

The main building is one kilometre long, approximately ~2,475,000 ft2/230,000 m2 in area, and consists of a grouped series of 215 ft2 or 20 m2 structural bays. Essentially, four separate automobile production plants are located under one roof: stamping, welding, painting and final assembly. Each plant has its own incoming electrical service and ventilation system. A rail spur serves a 25-acre paved shipping compound.

The greenfield project was built outside the town of Ingersoll, and the construction was fast tracked. HH Angus engineers worked closely with the construction managers in scheduling and organizing the project.

An independently-situated central plant provides heating and process steam, compressed air, and reverse osmosis-treated process water. The fully air-conditioned office building is connected to the main building by an overhead pedestrian and services bridge. The steam plant includes four boilers operating at 150 psig, three at 100,000 pounds per hour capacity and one at 35,000 pounds per hour. All boilers were designed to operate on either natural gas or Number 2 oil. 

After assessing the local water quality, which was completely supplied by wells, and a review of available treatment systems, we determined that a reverse osmosis system best suited the needs of the plant. The main components of this system, which was designed for a capacity of 550 US gallons per minute (gpm), are four parallel banks of thin composite membranes, five booster pumps, and two storage tanks, each with a capacity of 15,400 US gpm.

The compressed air system includes five compressors, two at 2000 scfm capacity and three at 5000 scfm (standard cubic feet per minute) capacity. Three desiccant-type air driers are incorporated into this system, which uses galvanized steel pipe with grooved type couplings for distribution purposes throughout the plant. 

The air handling units for the stamping, welding, and assembly plants were lifted by helicopter to their final locations on the various plant rooftops. These twenty-four units were selected for a capacity of 50,000 cubic feet per minute each, even though some were to be initially operated at other capacities. The paint plant was designed with full air conditioning, to help control paint quality. These units, along with the chilled water plant components, were housed in a penthouse over the paint plant.

The main electrical feeds to the plant are two 27.6 kV overhead lines which supply two 25 MVA transformers. Site distribution is via six 13.8 kV/480 V double-ended unit substations for general plant loads, and one 13.8 kV/4160 V double-ended unit substation for the central plant air compressors.