Which ship unloader & mobile crane are we talking about? I'm surprised it was only more than double.

What happens if you are unloading iron ore?

Ship unloaders are big clumsy things which only rarely manage to do the job as promised. For some powdery cargoes, eg alumina, the expensive suction unloaders are mandatory. They cost an arm & a leg & with some justification because they have big on board machinery. Further down the line there are various digging machines which promise the earth & then fall back on a bobcat to clean up the hold floor. There are large dedicated grab unloaders for iron ore, or coal, which do a reasonable job. A few dockside cranes might acheive the same unloading rate.

There is a remnant of GEC (Leicester, UK) that used to make a good mobile hopper to match the mobile crane output if you have environmental concerns. They're still lurking around under a fresh name; but still in Whetstone village.

There are plenty of grab manufacturers looking for sales on this website & there should be good value thereabouts. For a crane I'd look at MAN Takraf's Eberswalde. It was a UK lament that these superb cranes were not available to us in the Iron Curtain days!

Regardless of how much money you have to spend the chances of the ship sailing away on the right tide largely depend on the bobcat drivers way down in the hold. ■

Dear Sanjeeta,

You have not specified the unloading rate & from where you want to unload material. I can presume from ship. Aslo you have not indicated the type of unloader- intermitant or continious. Please note that both the machines are under crane. In M/s. KONE, Finland, both under VLC department.

If it is crane we have to attach grab, also for ship unloader . If it is continious type it is bucket wheel,yes, it is costly. But for same unloading rate the cost cannot be so .

The advantages of ship unloader with grab are as below.

1.Can be operated with the system.

2. Less dirty operation.

3. Less fatigue in operaton.

4. Less damage to vessel hold.

Regards.

A.Banerjee ■

Dear Sangeeta,

Ship unloader capacity would be 50000/20 = 2500 t/Hr. Cost is about Rs. 32.00 Crs. But You can write to TRF, KOLKATA for budgetory offer.

Regards.

A.Banerjee ■

Dear Sangeeta,

Wer can share our 30 years of experiance in--

1. Designing the layout for the terminal with all facilities.

2. Technical specifications for the equipment.

3. Costing for the entire terminal.

Regards, Anil Seth

Director

Libran Engineering & Services

www.libranengineering.com ■

Dear Sir,

Recently I was working on a tradeof analisys to take the desition about to buy one or other technology.

First of all, the process to unload iron ore or coal is totally diferent. if your project design will include both materials I highly recommend a good one crane unloader using a 20 ton grab. I personaly preffer an strong one crane instadeof movable cranes to perform grab unloading, because the 100% of the time the crane cycle is fully loaded and if you are using amovable crane for shure your time out for maintenece will increase all along the lifetime of the machine.

Also the railmounted cranes are ables to handle bigger grabs then the rate is also more than the movable cranes.

The iron ore can be also unloaded by continuous ship unloaders, in case of coal the unloading using this kind of equipments for both materials necesary force to have dust suppressors installed and with dry dust of coal it is became a litle dangerous.

You must evaluate the posibilityes having in mind witch material will be the most offen or the anual volume for both materials and decide if you want to unload coal and ireon ore using same equipment and any change to be made when you change products then percentage of utilization for your berth will be not affected by useless time changing filters and cleaning the dust suppession equipment.

The cost of a 45 ton level luffing crane and a continuous unloaders are same if you comprare this operational time less along the life time.

I hope to be a help for your issue.

many thanks.

Marcelo Alonso

056+974305552

Skype acfa.consultores ■