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Case Studies
Bulk Division
When a river terminal needed to upgrade their barge unloading capability, they turned to Heyl & Patterson. The facility employed an old unloader, the manufacturer of which was no longer in business. The unloader had a relatively low capacity, used hard to obtain, obsolete electrical components and experienced much-unexpected downtime. Although the solution seemed simple, replace the unloader with a new continuous bucket elevator unloader, there were obstacles.
The plant needed to maintain operations and could only afford a short shutdown time. In addition, existing plant infrastructure prevented on-site preassembly and equipment staging area was minimal. Heyl & Patterson altered conventional design schemes to meet the client’s particular needs. H&P designed a new machine to be preassembled at the factory in large components that could be directly transported via inland barge to the client’s terminal. Part of the challenge was to ensure that the components would be of the proper size to fit in a barge without overhang, which might restrict travel through river locks. The barge unloader parts needed to be securely placed to prevent damage while also optimizing space within the barge to keep shipping costs as low as possible. Finally, the placement of the machine parts had to be in an order as needed for the erection sequence, eliminating double handling or the need for a large laydown area at the job site.
All challenges were met and an outage that normally would have been at least 3 months in duration was reduced to 3 ½ weeks. Heyl & Patterson Inc.
2000 Cliff Mine Rd
Park West Two Suite 300
Pittsburgh, PA. 15275
Phone - 412 788-9810
Fax - 412 788-9822
24hr emergency HOTLINE - 412 788-9811
E-mail - info@heylpatterson.com
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