Konecranes UK has won a contract to supply three cranes to French company CNIM for a waste-to-energy plant in Hampshire, UK.
Two of the cranes are for waste handling and are fitted with orange peel grabs. These will dig, mix and load general household waste into a furnace hopper that will burn the waste for heat to produce steam for a turbine to generate electricity. The cranes will employ VR trolleys, adapted from Konecranes’ SM Spacemaker range. The winch rope drums are also specially adapted for two separate ropes on a two fall design that connects directly to the waste grab. A special feature of this trolley design is in the location of the power and control cables for the grab being fed directly from the rope drum. This avoids the use of separate cable drums which tend to over pay cable and cause tension, which means that they have the potential to snag.
The VR trolley design has the cable wound on the hoist drum and it therefore pays out at the same feed rate as the hoist ropes, avoiding snags and damage. Because the site is potentially hazardous to the crane operator, only one operator will be required for both cranes, working from an air-conditioned off-crane station, with CCTV, load print outs and display.
Both cranes use proprietary DynA invertor control on all motions and they can have manual or semi-automatic control. There is provision for fitting full automation later.
The third crane is a 10t-rated XLS type for turbine maintenance.
The contract will be completed and delivered by November this year. Also to be delivered by November is a 90t Goliath crane to Nordic Terminal at Immingham. The dockside Goliath crane will have a 20m span carrying two 60t Konecranes LV open winches on a common trolley frame, specially designed to lift cassettes of steel coils with a total weight of up to 90t.
The two 60t hoists allow for the weight of a special handling device, for eccentric loading, and they have partial rotation for line up and the ability to trim the load keeping it level. A specially designed cassette lifter with telescopic movement for width, load and position sensing is included in the supply where it also has legs that will swing up for storage when not being used for lifting cassettes of steel from railway wagons.
