Innovative Crane Modernization in a Waste-to-Energy Facility: Tampa’s McKay Bay Case Study

How Does a Waste-to-Energy Plant Work?

– [Lee Porritt] This is a trash to power incinerator plant. So what they do is all of your trash is dumped on what we call the tipping floor and pushed into the pit behind me. The cranes will then pick it up and dump it into these hoppers on our right, and it goes down to a, essentially a burn pile where it will create heat and steam for the boilers that will then go to the generating part of the plant.

Issues with the Old Cranes

So this facility was built in, I believe, 1964. These cranes were last updated in ’84.

– [Blake Porritt] The cranes were way outdated, so they were falling apart. They were breaking down. This one here that ran right above us, it was actually falling to the north side of the building. So the trolley would run away as the brakes gave out. So that was one of the issues they were having.

– [Craig Cottingham] They had numerous breakdowns trying to piecemeal their old cranes together to keep ’em running. Difficulty in finding parts.

Logistical Challenges of Installing a Crane in a Waste-to-Energy Facility

– [Lee Porritt] So the biggest challenge of doing this job, we had a couple of options. How do we replace the runway and rail? How do we replace the cranes? Concrete roof. Can’t take the roof off. We have a 30 foot deep pit that we had to work over top of. The biggest challenge was the pit.

– [Blake Porritt] How do you work over a 30 foot pit? We went through a couple of different ideas, using jersey barriers to fill the pit. Somehow leaving the trash in and working over that.

– [Cottingham] The pit obviously isn’t level at the bottom. We had to logistically figure out how we were going to level the pit. Ultimately, we ended up using stone to get the pit level.

How do you install a crane over a 30-foot pit?

– [Lee Porritt] We came up with pulling all the trash out of the pit and stacking overseas CONEX boxes on top of each other. 30 in total, built a steel structure over top of that, placed steel matting on top of that, creating what we call a dance floor.

– [Blake Porritt] Nobody’s ever done this before, so trying to figure out how to do it was pretty tough. But we all got together and found some good engineering companies and got it figured out.

– [Cottingham] We were fortunate. We had great engineers on board that were able to help us with figuring out our loads on the CONEXs and if it could be done safely, which is most important.

Benefits of the New Cranes for the City of Tampa

– [Lee Porritt] So what this is going to do for the city of Tampa, obviously, is it’s going to be more efficient. Their downtime is going to be slim to none now with all brand new equipment.

– [Stuart Vining] The cranes are semi automated. The operators from the chair, they have a whole section of buttons that are pit areas and hopper areas that they can select. Put the crane in semi automation, and they will run to that particular setup spot.

– [Cottingham] I think it’s going to help them tremendously. You know, with Mazzella, they’ll have parts availability. Obviously, they’re going to be much faster.

– [Lee Porritt] What we’ve done here, we’ve prolonged the life of this plant with our equipment, and they’ll get another 60 years out of it.