Custom Machining Solution Revolutionizes Repair of Aging Markland Locks

When challenging repair and maintenance projects call for out-of-the-box custom machining solutions or extremely tight deadlines, companies worldwide turn to Climax Portable Machine Tools. Whether it’s retrofitting bridges, or repairing aging dams or the heavy equipment that maintain the highways, Climax has built a reputation for collaborating with its customers and for designing and manufacturing custom machining tools with unparalleled levels of power and precision.

This reputation was put to the test for the Army Corps of Engineers in its repair of the Markland Locks, one of 10 locks and dams on the Ohio River.  The Markland site is a major water route for ships to deliver more than 46 million tons of commodities annually in and around the Ohio River Basin area.

Over time, frequent repairs to the Markland Lock’s gates left surfaces uneven and in need of repair. Without this repair, the dam and locks faced the risk of significant miter gate failure.  For past repairs, the Army Corps of Engineers typically used a process which involved removing the lock doors and replacing them or machining them off-site. However, this costly and time-consuming process prevented the Corps from performing repairs in a short time frame, thus its engineers sought a more efficient method that would cause no significant delays in the flow of shipping to the cities downstream. 

Climax’s custom machining services team reviewed the project requirements then proposed an innovative alternative to this repair. The team designed, fabricated and fully tested two large-scale, custom-made vertical milling machines that could refurbish the lock doors and door quoins in place. These precision and powerful milling machines have a modular design, enabling each section to be assembled at the site, then fastened to the doors. They will be remotely operated to travel up and down the 70 feet high walls in a single pass, removing up to 1.5-inches of materials over multiple passes.

Even more impressive: the custom machining tool is expected to enable the Army Corps machinists to perform the repair in under 17 days, a significant improvement over the several weeks that would have been needed under the old process.  With additional training from Climax, Army Corps engineers and maintenance crews now have the ability to perform similar repairs on other locks with this custom machining tool.