Dynamic Winches for Bechtel's Amrun Project

After beating tough competition, Eilbeck Cranes has won and successfully delivered the contract to supply dynamic take-up conveyor winches through Bechtel for the Amrun Project. The Winches & Sheaves designed and built to last in the harsh and ragged site conditions located on the western side of Cape York Peninsula, approx 40km South-west of Weipa.

These dynamic winches have been specifically designed in house by the Eilbeck Engineering team lead by the Managing Director and Lead Engineer Tom Eilbeck. This job offering a customised solution to suit exactly what the client required to complete the job effectively, efficiently and with high-quality at hand.

Eilbeck Cranes’ contract comprises of 3 different Dynamic Winches all supplied with local control panels and sheave assemblies to suit (single, double and triple sheave blocks ranging from 500mm to 710mm in diameter).  

• stacker feed conveyor dynamic take-up winch M5 Class 140kN line pull
• reclaim conveyor dynamic take-up winch M5 – 180kN line pull
• ship-loader conveyor dynamic take-up winch, class M5 – 210kN line pull

For this project, Eilbeck Cranes has developed an innovative active winch which is operated automatically through the Client’s Process Control System (PCS) to maintain tension in the belt conveyor through the various stages of operation (starting, running and stopping under any load condition and under normal and upset operating conditions). This done using configuration parameters of the variable speed drive (VSD) to ensure a smooth transition of the winch in either direction of operation.

All three Dynamic winches designed and manufactured in Eilbeck Sydney Facilities underwent load testing at 125% of SWL in the presence of Bechtel, Rio Tinto and third party quality inspector personnel. This was a smooth success!