Client: Fulton Hogan
Scope: Design & Deliver a bespoke mobile gravel feeding machine
Timeframe: 3 months
Overview
Fulton Hogan (FH) were awarded a contract to repair and reline the Tekapo Canal. This project required a new replacement liner to be placed through a seven kilometre section of canal that had been leaking water.
As a part of replacing the liner, FH’s scope of work required 20-200mm river run rock (AP 200-20 MM0) to be placed on top of a 10mm thick geotextile mat that directly covered the 2.5 mm thick geo-composite PVC membrane liner. This placement of the rock acts as ballast to keep the liner firmly located on the base and inverts of the canal.
The challenge for Fulton Hogan was to deliver this ballast material from the top section of the invert, which was several metres higher than the canal floor and the deliver the ballast 25 metres out into the centre of the canal floor. This had to be accomplished whilst ensuring the newly laid PVC canal floor was not damaged in the process.
Solution
Brightwater’s Engineering Design team worked closely with Fulton Hogan’s operational staff to develop several engineered solutions before settling on a combination of newly applied technologies and proven mobile plant technologies.
The process created was a Gravel Feeder mobile machine that accepted 30 tonne payloads from articulated dump trucks into a specifically designed steel constructed mobile bin. The product was then retrieved from the bin via a 20 tonne excavator and delivered into a hopper located on a specifically designed trailer mounted hopper. The hopper then fed the product directly onto a belt feeder conveyor in turn delivering the product onto a declining conveyor down to the centre of the canal floor. The process created a delivery rate of 2000 tonnes per day.
