Langh Ship Cargo Solutions, which has previously launched several containers to transport steel products, has now expanded to the world of raw materials.“Although many of our special units can be used to carry e.g. raw material on the return leg, now we have set our foot into it for real,” explains managing director Hans Langh. The new container is the second bulk container type in Langh Ship Cargo Solutions’ portfolio, the first being 20’ high cube container with a detachable hard roof launched in March this year.
Still there is a keen connection to steel production as the new half height hard open top container is very well suited for transportation of skull, extremely heavy and sharp material formed in connection of melting steel. “We were told that skull cannot be containerized. It was simply thought to be too sharp and heavy,” tells Markku Yli-Kahri, product manager for Langh Ship Cargo Solutions,“and in a way this is true — a normal container would most certainly get broken.”
The container can be stuffed from above after having lifted the roof off. It can also be loaded by driving into it with a wheel loader as the header of the container can also
be opened. The container’s construction is such that it can stand the very high pressure point arising not only from carrying material like skull but also the strong stress that results from loading as the blocks are dropped into the bottom of the container. “Without a special construction the blocks would break the floor and the walls already when stuffing the container,” states Yli-Kahri.
Due to the high density of the bulk carried the container can be filled up to its high payload of 30 tonnes in spite of it being only half of a high cube container’s height. When these HHHOT containers are placed on top of each other, two of them make the size of one HC container.
Unloading the container is made as fluent as possible; the inner walls are flat so that the carried material
will not stick to them and the dumping of the load from the container is swift as the bulk hatch in front of the container is as high and as wide as the container itself.
Though giving more than a standard container, the HHHOTC is quite standard when talking about its handling. The container can be handled fully loaded with any normal container handling equipment and it is totally intermodal.
“This gives a choice to the mining and steel industry — expensive special rail wagons are no longer needed and the transportations are not limited by the rail infra.The industry can use the economical sea routes and use trains and trucks to bring the containers to the end user,” comments Hans Langh.
Even when the transportation of the heavy material by rail continues, the container makes the transportation both more economic and safer. The economy in it comes from the fact of not needing special wagons. The safety comes from the fact that the loose bulk no longer is carried in a wagon-long unit but is safer divided into six-metre-long containers.