The International Bulk Journal rewarded Verstegen with the award for Best Grab.

Peter Visser, Sales Director at Verstegen: “The winning of Verstegen is the result of years of hard work in optimizing our grab design for specific bulk materials and applications. We closely work together with our existing and new customers to optimize each grab for their specific operation”.

Verstegen grabs have a modular design, consisting of proven parts and modules, already used in hundreds of other grabs. Small improvements are made constantly, always focused on the main goal: Handling large amounts of bulk material in a fast and efficient way over a long period of time. With this concept, Verstegen is world’s leading grab manufacturer with customers in more than 110 countries worldwide.

The IBJ Awards are hosted by International Bulk Journal, the leading magazine for the worldwide Dry Bulk Handling Industry. All the winners of the awards were announced at a spectacular gala dinner on November the 19th 2018 in the historic city of Ghent. IBJ Awards salutes excellence in bulk shipping and cargo handling and there has been a high response to this year’s call for entries. There have been more entrants than ever to the IBJ Awards 2018.

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Wood chips become more and more popular as an alternative energy source and are transported in large amounts across the globe. Verstegen developed a better solution for handling wood chips in a fast and efficient way.

HANDLING WOOD CHIPS WITH ORANGE PEEL GRABS

Wood chips are often handled with orange peel grabs and many people are still under the assumption that wood chips can only be handled with orange peel grabs. The grabs however are heavy, expensive and unfit for cleaning up operations.
Below the disadvantages of orange peel grabs are described:

• These grabs have a relatively high deadweight so this reduces productivity;
• The large circular footprint makes entry to a smaller ship hold difficult or impossible;
• Orange peel grabs are not suitable for cleaning up;
• The outflow of wood chips with orange peel grabs is uncontrolled and can cause difficulties with discharging direct into hoppers or trucks;
• Orange peel grabs are expensive and require more maintenance in comparison with clamshell grabs.

HIGH VOLUME AND LOW DEAD WEIGHT

Woodchips are normally difficult to handle. The material is very light but not free flowing and during loading of the ships, the material is often compacted by wheel loaders in order to store as much wood chips as possible in the holds. The combination of these factors, create a lot of digging resistance for the grab.

LONG HISTORY AND LARGE EXPERIENCE WITH BIOMASS

The first Verstegen grabs for wood chips were delivered in 1986 for a paper factory in the Netherlands. At that time the design of the grab was not optimal, but we learned a lot from studying the operation.

Over the years the grab model has evolved and in total more than fifty Verstegen ‘high volume clamshell grabs’ have been delivered for biomass.

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Handling sticky materials like nickel ore, wet bauxite, clay and wet iron ore can reduce productivity enormously and lead to dangerous situations.

SAFETY AND OPTIMAL PRODUCTION WITH STICKY MATERIALS

Verstegen supplied many special grabs for handling sticky bulk materials all over the world. These grabs have a special design and the shells are modified to prevent the material from sticking inside the shells.

PRODUCTIVITY AND SAFETY

There are a lot of sticky bulk materials that have to be handled with clamshell grabs like nickel ore, wet bauxite, clay and wet iron ore. When using a standard grab a large part of the material will stick to the shells. Production rates will decrease because of the necessary regular cleaning of the shells, which takes a lot of time and the reduction of the grabbing capacity. Another important issue is the dangerous situations that can occur when large pieces of material break loose from the shells and fall out while swinging the grab over a ship or a quay. People can easily be hit by chunks that weigh several tons.

SPECIAL GRAB DESIGN

The design of the grab is an important factor in preventing material sticking in the grab. Verstegen has developed grabs with special design for handling sticky materials. The shells of the grab are smooth without abrupt transitions, so material compression is minimal. The design of the shells is also without internal strengthening plates which reduces the surfaces to which material can stick.

SPECIAL GRAB SHELLS

There are several ways to prevent the material to stick to the shells. For some bulk materials making the shells from stainless steel is a good solution. This is done with concentrates like copper and led concentrate.

Another option is to cover the inside of the shells with special liners with a very low friction coefficient. As a result the material slides easy from the shells when the grab is opened.

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Most orange peel grabs are used for handling iron scrap. Scrap comes in different shapes and sizes. All these kinds of scrap result in different requirements for the optimal grab. We at Verstegen invest a lot of effort in optimizing our grabs for the best performance.

SCRAP IS A WHOLE DIFFERENT GAME

Scrap is completely different from all other bulk materials, it is not possible to calculate with a fixed density for scrap as for example coal or fertilizer. Especially the Heavy Melting Scrap (HMS) is far from homogeneous and this makes that every grab of material will be different.

DYNAMIC FORCES

There are various factors that influence the forces acting on the grab and crane. Important with scrap handling are the dynamic forces. A lot of extra force can be required to pull the grab free from the scrap on the pile or in the vessel. This is especially important whilst unloading mixed scrap and HMS with large pieces. Dynamic forces can result in 20% to 30% higher crane loads than the combined weight of the scrap and the grab.

COMPRESSION

Another common type of scrap is shredded scrap. This type of scrap is more homogeneous and has an uncompressed density between 0.8 and 1.2 ton per m³. For unloading shredded scrap there is another important factor to take into account: the compression of the scrap. When the grab is put on the material and is closed, the grab picks up a much larger volume than the designed capacity and most of the time the shells cannot close completely. Furthermore the shredded scrap is compressed inside the shells.

The combination of the above points result in a “practical grabbing density” of 1.4 to 1.8 ton/m³.

CAPACITY OF AN ORANGE PEEL GRAB

The capacity of an orange peel grab strongly depends on the type of scrap which is handled. The Verstegen orange peel grab has a very wide opening and large “grabbing capacity”. Normally an orange peel grab can pick up much more material than the scales can contain. As a result the scales don’t close completely, this is different from a clamshell grab. When the scales completely close the (theoretical) volume is less then the practical volume.

EXAMPLES OF GRABS IN OPERATION

Below pictures show our grabs in operation with their practical filling.

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