Carolina Sand uses Twin Disc HP300 Hydraulic PTOs to dredge up profits

Wayne Cassavaugh, owner of Carolina Sand, Inc. of Lenoir, NC has found a faster, more economical way to supply sand to local asphalt and concrete manufacturers. Nearest land-based sand mining operations are over two hours away, so river dredging is the most economical solution to high transportation costs. Currently Carolina Sand has two dredges and construction of a third dredge is to begin in spring 2007. Wayne has four or five places where they dredge, depending on which location is closest to current customer production needs.

Sister company Custom Enterprises is a grading/trucking/site preparation outfit. Wayne prides himself as personally designing and building all the processes and equipment required for both businesses. In fact Wayne will be breaking ground on a new manufacturing facility this spring.

Being intimately involved with the design and building of all his production equipment, Wayne had good reason to specify Twin Disc HP300 hydraulic PTOs on the dredges. Working with local Twin Disc distributor TECO, he learned that other dredge manufactures have used marine transmissions for the power train, forcing them to piggyback very large pumps off the front of the engine to handle all the hydraulics. That involved drive shafts, u-joints, specialized pumps, and required a large amount of real estate - and still may not have afforded enough pump capacity. TECO representatives demonstrated how the Twin Disc HP300 could handle all those issues in a compact package. Wayne also likes the fact that the HP300 is designed from the start to be an industrial product, as opposed to adapting a marine product to serve in an industrial application. The remote actuation of the large industrial wet clutch was a key component in Wayne’s decision, since the clutch would have to be located in an area of the dredge that would not allow for practical operation of a manual clutch.

The dredges operate 10 hours a day, 6 days a week. The HP300s are engaged and disengaged frequently for dredge repositioning, cutter head cleaning, etc.

Likely the world’s first HP dredging application, the HP300 is mounted directly to a Cummins 450 hp engine. All four pumps pads are in use: one large pump turns the cutter head, one pump runs the “ladder” hydraulics, one pump runs winches and other accessories, and the last pump is the charge pump for the HPTO. Currently the HP300 is driving a sheave and poly-chain for the required 2.5:1 gear reduction for the main dredge pump. The third dredge, currently under construction, is being designed to use an industrial transmission in place of the sheave, but production timing would not allow this set-up for this initial dredge. However, in terms of its input and output capacities, durability and compact package, the Twin Disc HP300 has proven to be an invaluable component in raising profits.