The last two years have seen Finnish-based Transformer and Processor manufacturer ALLU enjoy impressive growth. This has enabled the company behind the attachment concept to further assist companies throughout the world. In order to continue its expansion, and the growth of its impressive French business, ALLU is pleased to announce the appointment of Olivier Jeanneaux as its new French Sales Manager.

French native Jeanneaux is a well-known name to the crushing, screening and material processing industries throughout France. Jeanneaux has worked for the past 30 years in the industry, being previously employed in a variety of senior roles by Kleeman, Metso and latterly, Sandvik Mining and Rock Technology.

“With all his experience, his drive and his focus on understanding the needs of customers, I am sure Olivier will contribute greatly to ALLU’s continuing success,” says ALLU president Ola Ulmala. Olivier Jeanneaux himself says of his new position: “ALLU is the leading name in the attachments business. Its reputation is without equal, and I am proud to play my part in bringing ALLU solutions to more businesses throughout France.”

The ALLU Transformer D-Series is a range of attachments purpose designed for a variety of precision screening and material processing applications, transforming business operations wherever used. Highlighting the unique attributes of a highly productive range, Swedish contractor Johan Kits, has since 2014 successfully used the range for a variety of projects, transforming material arising from recycling, blasting and excavating.

The ALLU Transformer D and DL-Series comprises of an excavator/ loader/ tractor mounted attachment which screens, crushes, aerates, blends, mixes, separates, feeds and loads materials. This results in the feed material being effectively transformed into highly valuable products, making businesses more efficient, and more profitable.

The Transformer D and DL-Series have proved their value in a variety of applications; these include landscaping, pipeline padding, recycling and agricultural applications, crushing and screening, transforming soil, waste and debris processing. The unique attributes of the series means that all work can be carried out on site, with this truly mobile solution providing the versatility and flexibility to enable more efficient work even in the most challenging of environments.

One such business that has enjoyed the benefits of the ALLU Transformer range is Swedish company Kits Contractor AB. Johan Kits bought his first ALLU Transformer in 2014, with the attributes of the equipment meaning that Johan and his team were able to take on more projects. Johan soon found that the Transformer was too small for his needs, so in 2015 he changed it to an ALLU DN 3-12, which he still owns and operates. Johan did not stop there; in 2017 he bought a DS 4-17, and in 2018 added a DH 4-17 for pre-and-rough crushing and screening.

Johan Kits’ Transformers are highly flexible and are able to operate mounted on most excavators / loaders. Johan’s latest acquisitions are mounted on a Liebherr 140 (ALLU DN3-12) and a Volvo L90 (ALLU DS4-17). The DN 3-12 is currently configured to produce 0-30mm materials, whereas the DS 4-17 is configured to 0-16mm.These configurations provides Johan with the flexibility and productivity he needs for his varied and very busy business.

Varied business interests

Kits Contractor AB was established in 2011 and now employs 12 permanent staff; the company also takes on temporary contracting staff as the need arises.  Johan’s main business is recycling construction waste, as well as blasting. The ALLU Transformers have proved their worth many times over working on different job sites, where the transportability and flexibility of the ALLU equipment has come into its own.

“We use the material (transformed by the ALLU equipment) on different job sites, although we do sell it to other companies as well. Mostly the buyers (of the material) are other contractors and they use it mostly for landscaping projects. But a lot of material we use is for ourselves,” says Johan Kits concerning the recycled material following processing by the ALLU Transformers. As to why he chose the ALLU equipment, Johan continued, “ALLU is a well-known brand/company and its reputation is excellent. It offers low investment combined with high capacity even in bad conditions and is simple to operate.”

At the heart of the Transformer D-Series is the unique top screen of its bucket. This is where the screening blades spin between the top screen combs with the end material size being defined by the space between the combs. Effectively these screening combs carry most of the material weight to ensure the drums and bearings take on less impact and load. This construction is clog-free and maintains good capacity even with wet materials

The Transformer D and DL-Series have been designed to be mounted on excavators, tractors and backhoe loaders. This means they are ideally suited to the requirements of companies requiring limited, yet profitable, material separation, crushing, screening and processing as Johan Kits has found to his benefit.

Disposing of your waste is just about to become a lot more expensive. As of March 2019, Qld will be implementing a waste levy of $70 per tonne, increasing by $5 p/t every January until at least 2022.

This will impact not only the 90% of Queenslanders who live in the affected areas, but also NSW as well. NSW transported 912,000 tonnes of waste per year to Qld in 2016–17, with that amount rising since then. This is because the waste levy in Sydney is $141.70 per tonne, so while the Qld levy remains less than the NSW one, it is likely that the rubbish flow will continue. Just using the above figures means NSW waste costs will increase by over $60 million. A large portion of this is construction and demolition waste.

So what can you do about it? Follow Bob the Builder’s mantra: reduce, reuse, recycle.

There are now products that can help make your project more efficient and rather than allowing waste to become a cost, turn it into a profit stream instead.

One example is the ALLU Transformer bucket. With a range to suit everything from skid steers to loaders and excavators, the ALLU can process and reuse demolition waste on site. The ALLU Transformer bucket is a screening, blending, mixing, sorting and sieve bucket that in the right application can also be used for light crushing. It utilises a patented system of rotating shafts with blades, giving it unique features, says ALLU, such as being able to handle wet product and reduce particle size. The ALLU also does not require shaking of the machine (like a screening bucket), and hence has much greater control and is much safer for your machine, operator and surrounding environment, says the company.

It is common practice to remove fill from site, then to bring clean material back to achieve required compaction etc. This means you are paying $70/tonne in disposal costs, $2–$3/kilometre to run your truck to the waste facility, then you buy clean fill and again pay $2–$3/kilometre to bring product back to your site. This also involves considerable use of valuable time on your project.  

By using an ALLU Transformer bucket, you can process your existing fill on site, thereby eliminating most of the above costs. There are environmental benefits too, from reduced emissions and less waste products. Think of how many truck loads you can save if the product could be more compact, reducing the air space in each load?

If you consider that, you can possibly reduce the amount of trucks you have in your fleet. Therefore, by investing in an ALLU can have substantial rewards.

Levies have to be paid by somebody. There is no reliable estimate on the cost for Queenslanders, but extrapolating data indicates the state’s residents will be paying between $200–300 million. Some businesses might see this as a cost they simply pass on to their customers. Others will see this as an opportunity to re-think how they can run their business more efficiently, thereby containing costs, becoming more competitive to win more jobs, and increasing their profits.

For more information on the ALLU Transformers and what it can do for you, contact the dealer in your state, or visit www.rdw.com.au

Finnish attachments manufacture ALLU says it held the “‘best ever” meeting of its global dealer network recently when close to 100 people, representing over 30 ALLU dealers, visited Finland. The company says it has placed a great deal of emphasis over the last few years in growing its highly professional dealer and distributor network, and throughout Europe, Latin America, the US and increasingly South-Est Asia, the network has continued to grow. During the meeting in Finland, dealers enjoyed a series ofBreaking, Drilling & Blasting / March 20, 2018SHARE FacebookTwitterLinkedInEmailAn ALLU attachment at work

Finnish attachments manufacture ALLU says it held the “‘best ever” meeting of its global dealer network recently when close to 100 people, representing over 30 ALLU dealers, visited Finland.

The company says it has placed a great deal of emphasis over the last few years in growing its highly professional dealer and distributor network, and throughout Europe, Latin America, the US and increasingly South-Est Asia, the network has continued to grow.

During the meeting in Finland, dealers enjoyed a series of events aimed at providing them with the latest developments and application thinking concerning the ALLU products, including the ALLU Transformer and Processor ranges.

In addition to seminars, workshops and an informative walk-through of the production process, ALLU product and service experts were also on-hand to provide advice in order to help the dealers assist their customers maximise their investments.

“The dealer conference and meeting was the perfect occasion for me to meet the ALLU people in the field,” says Jeroen Hinnen, newly-appointed ALLU vice president of sales.

“I thought it was an excellent occasion, enabling us at ALLU to not only help our partners, but also to listen to what they and their customers want from ALLU.”

At a gala dinner held on the last night of the meeting, an awards ceremony was held to recognise the outstanding performance of ALLU’s dealers. Huppenkothen from Germany was presented with Dealer of the Year with PT. Alluxindo Pratama Sukses from Indonesia being awarded the ALLU Award for Excellence.

Newly-appointed dealer R D Williams from Australia, was given the Best Performing New Dealer Award.

“Our dealers are vital link between us and the customers. And the dealer’s performance has been outstanding in 2017,” says Ola Ulmala, ALLU president.

“The ALLU awards recognise how well our dealers are performing, providing customers with outstanding solutions wherever they are in the world.”

The dealer meeting is one of a series of events ALLU intends to hold throughout 2018 aimed at helping its dealers help their customers. Service workshops are scheduled throughout the world, as are application and product development seminars.

The ALLU Transformer Series comprises an excavator/loader/tractor-mounted processing bucket which screens, pulverises, aerates, blends, mixes, separates, even crushes, feeds and loads materials.

Near Hutchinson, Kansas, about 500 to 750 feet below the earth’s surface, there lie a number of abandoned underground salt caverns, filled with brine water and capped with concrete. The caverns, initially created in the early to mid-1970s using the solution-mining process, were used to store liquid propane gas (LPG), which was then extracted for consumption. The cavern wells were used in this capacity until the early 1990s.

After that time, the caverns sat plugged, abandoned, and largely unnoticed until 2011, when three businessmen – Craig Pangburn, a licensed geologist; Kenneth Gates; and Kevin Gates – acquired the land and founded Underground Cavern Stabilization, LLC (UCS) as a commercial Class V emplacement facility to contain non-hazardous contaminated materials within the abandoned caverns. The company received its licenses and permits in 2012, and opened for business in 2013.

According to Steve Pangburn, UCS facility manager, the purpose behind the company’s process is two-fold. “We provide a method for backfilling, emplacing, and containing non-hazardous semi-solid or solid material into these plugged/abandoned underground salt caverns. At the same time, we are helping to stabilize the ground in this area,” he says.

Known as “beneficial reuse material,” the material matter accepted by UCS for containment includes such industrial material as drilling muds, cement slurry, and salt-saturated or high-chloride contaminated soils. “These are not hazardous materials, but they are considered contaminated, and we don’t want them getting into the environment and causing issues,” emphasizes Pangburn.

Process Within the Process
With only a narrow bore hole to access the brine-filled caverns, how does UCS remove the salt water in the caverns and replace it with the solid soils?

The caverns are filled one at a time. The company must first drill out the concrete seal left behind by the former owners on each individual plugged/abandoned cavern well. Then, using a patented, proprietary process, a slurry created by mixing salt water and the beneficial reuse material solids is emplaced down into the cavern via a 5-1/2-inch steel pipe, set within a larger 8-5/8-inch pipe in the bore hole. The 8-5/8-inch outer casing is cemented in the well from the surface to the bottom of the casing. The displaced brine water from the well is forced up the outer pipe and into above-ground containers, where it is reused to create more slurry or sold to customers who can use it – creating zero waste.

“Business has been good,” says Pangburn. “In fact it was so good that we were working hard to keep up with the material coming in.” He explains that the dry material brought to the UCS site is placed into a covered concrete slab with 6-foot walls, to contain it until it can be processed for the slurry. The dry material often is bulky, sticky, and clumped together, and he says the larger clumps would not pass through the hopper into the slurry.

“Over the years, we tried all kinds of ways to break down the dry material, including hitting it with the backside of a bucket and even using a grinding wheel, but nothing really worked,” he says. “Then one of our partners discovered ALLU’s material processing buckets online. We were steered toward Murphy Tractor, the local ALLU dealer, and Luke Fanshier from Murphy came out and had us try an ALLU bucket.”

According to Fanshier, “In January of this year, we took a wheel loader and an ALLU D-Series bucket out to the UCS site, and began using it to process and reduce their dry solids prior to their slurry pit. Immediately, it doubled their production. That’s when we started discussing how to fit the ALLU bucket to UCS’s John Deere 644 loader.”

The ALLU Transformer^™ material processing bucket replaces a standard bucket on a wheel loader, excavator or other carrier machine. Turning drums in the bottom, outfitted with changeable blades and hammers, will crush, pulverize, separate and screen the dry material, allowing the sized dry material to pass through the bottom of the bucket.

“The ALLU unit has provided a huge advantage for us,” says Pangburn. “It quickly breaks apart and reduces the soils we receive, turning them into finer dry material that works better with our slurry. It’s been a huge time saver for us, and has helped us to increase our production by at least 100%.”

Heavily Regulated
Material arriving at the UCS facility must be accompanied with documentation from the Kansas Department of Health and Environment (KDHE), verifying that it is non-hazardous. UCS also conducts testing on all incoming materials to check for pH levels, chlorides, conductivity, and temperature. The dry solid material deemed acceptable is unloaded onto the covered concrete slab where the ALLU Transformer^™ DH 3-17 40 screener crusher bucket processes the solids. The reduced solids then are added into a hopper and fed into the emplacement slurry, which is introduced into the piping for emplacement.

The KDHE allows containment of the material within the caverns because they are located below the water table. The caverns were previously approved for use in storing LP gas because the salt formation is essentially impervious to liquid and gas, and it has a compressive strength comparable to concrete under the pressure of the overlying rock. In addition, the salt formation is somewhat self-healing because over time the formation creeps and re-seals any fractures or voids that may occur due to pressure. “The LP gas is gone. There’s no danger of catastrophic events with these caverns, as related to emplacement and backfilling of material,” notes Pangburn.

As part of its permit, UCS is required to test the longstring (interior pipe) and casing string (casing pipe) for mechanical integrity on each well as it is opened to ensure it has not been compromised. Opened and finished wells must also be retested regularly, with reports sent to the KDHE.

“This is an environmentally friendly process. We’re offering a different option to oil and gas operators instead of landfilling or landspreading (mixing additional solids into the material to render it inert), which is especially important in groundwater-sensitive areas,” Pangburn says. “We’re also creating beneficial reuse material out of discarded material, and putting it down into the caverns for better stabilization.”

The company’s containment site now encompasses 234 acres, with a total of 61 cavern wells available to fill – a number that is estimated to provide 180 years or more of stabilization activity.
ALLU Group Inc., 800/939-2558, www.alllu.net