Taking Back Lift Control

By Simon West

When Ritchie Services was recently hired to handle a pressure vessel in a tight space onboard an offshore oil platform in the North Sea, the project team quickly ruled out deploying conventional lifting equipment.

Instead, the UK-based heavy-lift specialist called into action its Enerpac SL60 gantry, a 60-tonne capacity hydraulic crane boasting four “legs,” header beams and an in-built Intelli-Lift wireless control system.

Once the gantry was set up, it was shifted along skidding tracks and positioned to take the weight of the pressure vessel, with the operator controlling the lift to avoid overload. With the vessel hoisted off the ground, the project team used cold cutting techniques to remove its feet for easy loading and shipping.

“As this was a live, offshore platform, the need for controlled lifting was paramount to ensure the security of the lift,” said Iain Ritchie, director of Ritchie Services.

“The gantry system synchronizes the four lifting legs to within 14 millimeters of each other. This allows for a controlled lift and lower at the touch of a button and prevents jacks from becoming overloaded due to the header beams being out of alignment. Not only does this improve the stability of the system during lifting operations, but it also improves efficiency as the operator does not need to constantly adjust the individual jacks to ensure a level lift.”

Synchronous lifting is becoming increasingly commonplace at project sites, with the electronically controlled systems being deployed to handle some of the world’s largest and most complex structures.

The systems are often called into action when lifting heavy and oversized cargo in confined spaces with limited access for cranes, such as factories or industrial plants, or when large-scale conventional lifting equipment is just too costly.

The technology, which can include in-built computers that process and send to clients detailed, up-to-the-minute information on operations, is typically used in sectors such as power, civil construction, automotive and aerospace.


Fusion Project Support

In southern France, synchronous lifting techniques are helping to assemble giant components for the ITER prototype nuclear fusion project.

Billed as one of the world’s most ambitious energy initiatives, the ITER experiment is designed to prove the feasibility of fusion – the nuclear reaction that powers the sun and the stars – as a large-scale sustainable source of energy. The project is slated to begin operations in 2025.

Nine pre-installed hydraulic cylinders connected to Enerpac’s EVO synchronous lifting pump are scheduled to be mobilized in two years’ time to lift up an 11-meter-diameter, 320-tonne circular poloidal magnet at the base of the ITER’s tokamak, the hulking structure that will eventually host the fusion reaction.

The EVO pump, with its built-in warning and stop alarms to improve safety, will enable each of the nine lifting points to be monitored and controlled by a single operator, with real-time status updates sent to the client.

“The benefit for the customer is that the operator gets a complete understanding of what is going on with their lift from a central control position at the best vantage point. They do not have to worry about non-uniformly distributed loads. The system automatically manages the operator’s instructions safely and efficiently, within controlled load and synchronicity parameters to within a fraction of a millimeter,” Jeremy Stubbs, commercial director at Enerpac, told Breakbulk.

“If they were doing it with a dial test indicator or a pressure gauge, you would have to go out and look at each jacking position every minute or so and check everything is OK. The other thing you can do with a synchronous system is weighing – confirming design weights of structures. And we can do that with our synchronous lifting systems.”


Load Leveling

Allelys, the UK-based haulage company that often deploys synchronous lifting for its projects, recently completed seven installations of the largest aluminum die cast machines in the UK. The components, including a fixed plate weighing 57 tonnes and a moving plate weighing 87 tonnes, were delivered from Europe on a multi-axle transport vehicle and offloaded inside the project site.

Due to space restrictions in the production facility, Allelys used two hydraulic lifting gantries with integrated synchronous lifting and lowering technologies to carry out the move.

A 450-tonne capacity lift and lock system was used to transship the plates from the transport vehicle onto a 6-axle self-propelled modular trailer, or SPMT. The pieces were then maneuvered through the facility’s gangways and stanchions to the second lift stage using a 900-tonne capacity gantry with side shift technology links for precise final positioning.

Charlie Latham, head of tendering and business development at Allelys, said synchronous lifting is preferred over traditional jacking in situations where it is imperative the load remain level.

“Traditional jacking operations where the load is jacked at opposing points in succession, or end for end, cannot guarantee this,” Latham said. “The system also offers more accurate placement of loads whereas end for end jacking may result in the load shifting during the operation.

“It will apply less unwanted stresses to the load and therefore may be declared the preferred method of handling by the manufacturer.”

Another key advantage of synchronous lifting is footprint, Ritchie said, where large or heavy loads can be lifted by hardware that fits into the back of a van.

“We have found this particularly useful within the modular construction sector. We use a 200-tonne capacity jacking system with our split flow pump to raise buildings weighing up to 100 tonnes to a height of one meter to allow for loading to transport,” he said.

“The system and the required timbers fit on the back of a small wagon and negate the need to send large mobile cranes to site. We are also not limited by location and working radius, which can so often be a limiting factor for mobile cranes.”

Michel de Jong, senior project manager at Wagenborg Nedlift, a subsidiary of Dutch maritime logistics group Royal Wagenborg, said synchronous lifting systems are deployed in more than half the projects involving the company.

Last year Wagenborg Nedlift used eight electronically controlled hydraulic jacks to lift a 900-tonne concrete bridge deck onto SPMTs in Groningen. The preparation, installation of the jacks, transfer to SPMTs and driving to the final destination was completed in one week.

“We use synchronous lifting when the customer asks for it,” de Jong said. “But also where the load is critical to the capacity of our system – when you are close to the limit you want to know what you are doing, and be able to control it. It is also used in situations where you have more than four lifting points. We can go up to 32 lifting points, and you can imagine it is hard to control that manually.”


Capacities and Systems Improvement

The technology behind synchronous lifting is constantly evolving, with new systems being launched according to customer demands. Capacities are also rising – Wagenborg Nedlift can now lift up to 2,400 tonnes using synchronous and hydraulic lifting, de Jong said.

According to Latham, new feedback systems featuring a microprocessor control device that maintains cylinder stroke by throttling oil supplies is replacing older systems that relied on a separate pumping circuit to each jack with a multi-chamber pump.

“The systems have already evolved to become less mechanical and more digital,” Latham said.

“The design of the system has also improved. Traditionally they were solid structures that needed to be transported on low loaders or layover, but more recent models now have the ability to fold, meaning that they can be transported more efficiently on a Euroliner trailer.”

The technology still has scope for improvement though.

De Jong said more standardized products were needed to enable project teams to operate different types of systems, while Ritchie would like to see an improved range of sensors with wireless communication and the introduction of a controller for split flow pumps to allow the operator to move around and monitor the lift during operation.

“So often the lift becomes a clutter of cables and hoses. The technology exists within the gantry system range but would be great if it could be applied across the whole product range,” he said.

Enerpac’s Stubbs, meanwhile, pointed to growing customer demand for remote connectivity, monitoring and real-time uploads to project progress websites and clients’ enterprise resource planning systems.

“Digitalization of project progress and machine status can be used to simplify communication, and improve operational efficiency and the equipment’s longevity,” the commercial director said.

“We are also sometimes asked for remote offsite operation – but we do not want to put operations into the hands of somebody sat on a desk miles away when you are lifting hundreds or thousands of tonnes around. That is a stretch too far.”  

Colombia-based Simon West is a freelance journalist specializing in energy and biofuels news and market movements in the Americas.

Image credit: Wagenborg Nedlift