JTC Inc. of Seattle has a contract to deliver 100,000 tons of aggregate and railroad ballast to the Hyundai Merchant Marine (America) Terminal project on Tacoma’s Blair Waterway. It is a $17.6 million project to build a 55-acre container yard handling and storage facility on the Hyundai site.

JTC Inc. has been involved in supplying construction material by barge around Puget Sound for years, said owner Larry Jay, but the size of the Hyundai project represented a big step for his small company. The barge mounted conveyor he had been operating lacked the reach and production capability he needed, and he was confident other good jobs would come his way if he had the proper equipment to handle them.

The answer came in the form of a telescoping radial stacker built by Westec Industries, Inc. of Seattle. Jay mounted the first-of-its-kind unit on his conveyor barge, where it is used to transfer materials from the gravel barge to shore. The unit consists of a hopper feeder mounted on the port side of the barge and a conveyor boom set at right angles to deliver off the starboard side. This allows the barge to tie up lengthwise to the shore, making it much less susceptible to swinging due to wind and tide forces than if the conveyor delivered straight off the front of the barge.

Power for the radial stacker is supplied by a Caterpillar genset mounted on the barge. Separate electric motors drive the hopper feeder and the conveyor. The conveyor consists of a 75-ft. main boom with an extension mounted inside that provides a maximum reach of 120 ft. The boom can be shifted side to side and has considerable travel up and down to a maximum angle of 18 degrees, said Roger Hill, Westec vice president. This allows the unit to remain in operation as the barge rises and falls on the tide.

According to Hill a key element of the Westec conveyor is its one piece belt. The belt wraps around the extension and only requires one drive to run it. That saves weight compared to traditional two-piece units, which require a second drive to run the extension .

Jay said the unit proved its worth on its first job, a delivery to the penitentiary at McNeil Island. Prison inmates were involved in the operation, so it had to be done during daylight hours, regardless of the tides. Jay was impressed by not only the flexibility of the radial stacker, but also its production rate.

"We did 6,000 tons in eight hours of belt time," he said. "You can’t argue with that."

Still, he recalled getting some skeptical looks when he first arrived with the unusual unit at the Hyundai site. But the performance of the radial stacker has been impressive: the production rate in JTC’s contract calls for at least 500 tons per hour, but it has been averaging about 750.

This spring Westec finished construction and installation of a new scalping screen and structure with reclaim tunnel and conveying system for a large aggregate producer in the Northwest.

According to Westec president Ed Christiansen, this system was designed to produce a higher quality product and improve production .

The scalping screen is fed by a 42" x 120’ feed conveyor and separates coarse and fine aggregates. The material then travels to two surge piles. The fine aggregates are conveyed by a 36" x 230’ conveyor supported by a 47’ high tower.

The tower bears a cantilevered truss design that eliminates supports in the active portion of the stockpile and creates a 60’ high surge pile providing storage for 5,000 live tons of product.

This new aggregate storage system is complete with a reclaim tunnel, a 12’ belt feeder with clam gate, and a 36" x 205’ conveyor integrating the new system with the existing operation.

Westec is proud to be able to supply C&W dust collection systems for every operation from anti-overfill and Shroud systems, like the one shown, to automatic cement recycle systems. Using this innovative technology will pay for itself by reducing maintenance costs, increasing productivity, improving profitability, and reducing vehicle maintenance costs. With a C&W system your plant will meet or exceed all EPA clean air requirements.

EMPLOYEE NEWS

Everyone at Westec will miss Wayne Jacobs who retired in October after 12 years of outstanding service to the company and our customers. Good luck, Wayne!

NEIL BOEH

Westec’s parts and supplies customers are seeing a familiar face. We are pleased to have Neil Boeh back with the company as our parts and supplies salesperson. Neil has been a resident of the Pacific Northwest all of his life and was a Westec sales person from 1989 to 1997.