"We bought the E-Crane™ because it was designed
for what we wanted to do."
 

Customer:	AMEREN
Type:	18264 PD-E
Location:	Sioux Plant, West Bank of the Mississippi River at Alton, MO., USA
Application:	Offloading coal from barges
Mount:	32 foot diameter cell
Lifting Capacity:	26.5 UStons/24 Mtons
Reach:	86 ft / 26,4 m
Attachment:	24yd3/ 19m3 Hydraulic Grab
Power Source:	600-hp / 450 kW electric motor
Productivity:	Exceeding 1000 tons/hr

"The heart of the unloading facility is the E-Crane™", said Todd Meyer, Project Engineer for AmerenUE. The E-Crane™ at the Sioux Plant is equipped with a 24yd3 clamshell bucket. It can reach out horizontally a distance of 86 feet and continue unloading barges if the river rises or falls through a vertical range of 25 feet.

The free-dig rate of this E-Crane™ is 1,800 U.S. tons per hour. Unloading a standard barge of its 1,500 tons of coal takes something less than 90 minutes total, even with the confined space within the barge and the need to move the barge frequently so that it can be unloaded evenly. As an added benefit, the E-Crane™ can exert a downward force (equal to half the payload) to literally push the clamshell bucket into the coal. Or, the operator can exert just enough downward force to clean the coal off the bottom of the barge.

The E-Crane™ is mounted on a 32-foot-diameter cell. Two additional cells lie up- and downriver. Four permanently moored barges form a dock between the center cell and the two others.

AmerenUE engineers looked at four alternatives for barge unloading and the hydraulic E-Crane™ closely met the project goal of 4 millions ton a year at a reasonable price. "We bought the E-Crane™ because it was designed for what we wanted to do" said Michael Lobbig, Project Director for AmerenUE. "It was the right price at the tonnage target. Nothing else really fit." Please activate Java...