Bespoke lifting system

The facility comprised a number of dipping tanks in a line 30 metres long. The crane system lifts a large cage containing production items from the floor to a height that just clears the tanks and travels, lowering the cages into tanks as needed.

The crane also recovers and relocates the cage after treatment. The system had to work around very limited headroom and tight space around the treatment tanks.

As this was a fast moving production facility the system was designed to be reliable, safe and operator friendly.

The free standing gantry system has two 5 tonne cranes. Headroom was very tight so special twin hoist double girder cranes were designed with each crane having the twin electric chain hoists mounted in fixed positions and suspended from brackets above the double girders.

Purpose made lifting frames were designed to be suspended from the hoists and to easily locate on the lifting lugs of the cages manufactured by Knowsley Engineering. It was also decided that the system should be radio remote controlled with pendant plug-in backup and that two hand sets would be provided. Each hand set has a change over switch so that the hoists can be operated in tandem or independently and this enables the operator to keep the hoist hook heights synchronised.

The controls feature ‘monitored tandem lift’ as an additional safety feature in accordance with the very latest standards. If one hoist fails to operate when in tandem mode this feature prevents the other hoist from working. The complete system was installed, tested and commissioned by Linian Cranes within just a few weeks of an order being placed.

Ian Watson, MD of Linian Crane and Hoist Company, says: “This is yet another great example of Linian’s ability to tailor bespoke lifting solutions to customer’s individual and specific requirements."

Paul Davies, MD of Knowsley Engineering Services adds: "A very impressive performance from Ian and the team at Linian Cranes, we are delighted with the end result."