Floating E-Cranes – Expand Bulk Handling Capacity on the Water
Many ship loading or unloading ports are faced with problems such as congestion, no land for expansion, and costly outdated infrastructure. Ports confronted with these problems must search for new and creative solutions to handle them. An ideal solution is to move bulk handling operations to the water, with barge mounted E-Cranes.
Balanced Design Ideal for Barge Mounting
An E-Crane distinguishes itself by being a fully balanced heavy duty crane. The E-Crane design is based on an ingenious parallelogram style boom that provides a direct mechanical connection between the counterweight and the load. This unique 4 bar mechanism system ensures that the E-Crane remains in near perfect balance throughout its working range. This unique feature results in an important economic advantage as an E-Crane requires approximately 50% less power consumption compared to competitive cranes, whose counterweights are fixed or only linked to the boom and not the load.
Along with the significant energy savings that a balanced design provides, it makes the E-Crane ideal for mounting on a floating barge. Because the crane is balanced, the movement of the E-Crane causes very minimal listing and movement of the barge. A barge mounted crane is also beneficial because it floats up and down along with the material barges and ships when the water elevation changes. This means that the cycle of picking material out of the barge or loading ships is never affected by water fluctuation. The operator never has to adjust to this fluctuation and no cycle time is added compensating for varying water levels.
Additionally, an E-Crane being installed on a barge or pontoon can be built and tested locally and then floated to its final destination. This eliminates costs and difficulties of local logistics and marine construction. Also, a floating terminal can be moved and located at the closest point suitable for the end user, optimizing the setup, making bulk handling faster and more efficient. The complete terminal can also be relocated quickly and cost effectively if required, because of the modular concept.
A Proven Solution
The E-Crane is designed specifically for barge and ship loading and unloading, and is a proven and trusted solution in many bulk material handling industries. Most dedicated systems for offloading coal, limestone and other bulk materials are costly, inflexible, and require an expensive, hard to maintain infrastructure. E-Crane’s versatility, reliability and flexibility allows for tailor-made material handling solutions. These custom solutions, combined with E-Crane’s modular design, make E-Crane the ideal equipment for any bulk handling application.
The standard E-Crane product line consists of five series of balanced hydraulic cranes (E-Cranes): 700 Series, 1000 Series, 1500 Series, 2000 Series, and 3000 Series. The E-Crane is placed firmly between production line excavators (or material handlers) and large scale dedicated unloading structures. Even the smallest E-Crane offers much more unloading capacity than the standard excavator while the larger E-Cranes compete with dedication systems in terms of production but come in at only a fraction of the installed cost with even less annual maintenance costs. The E-Crane series offers models with up to 50 tons duty cycle capacity and outreaches of up to 150 ft (50m).
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About E-Crane Worldwide
E-Crane Worldwide is a modern, state-of-the-art engineering and heavy equipment construction company, based in Adegem, Belgium and with subsidiary companies for sales management, technical support and service in The Netherlands (E-Crane International Europe) and Ohio, USA (E-Crane International USA). E-Crane Worldwide develops turnkey material handling solutions with engineering services, equipment manufacturing, erection, operator/maintenance training and custom tailored on-going service programs for our clients.
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