Ship loader reduces degradation and dusting of calcined coke
When Arco Petroleum Products found that its ship loader, which dropped calcined coke a maximum of 60 feet into a ship's hold, was degrading the material and causing dust, the company installed a new ship loader that drops the calcined coke fewer than 12 feet.
Arco Petroleum Products produces calcined coke, some of which is shipped by rail and deposited in silos at the Port of Longview in Washington to be loaded onto ships. From the silos, calcined coke is moved by a conveyor belt mounted on a gantry beside the port. A belt both up and down and side to side over a ship's hold while loading calcined coke into a ship loader. The ship loader pivots on a gimbal that allows the ship loader to always hang vertically, despite the gantry's up-and-down motion.