The Requirements
A series of lightweight 250kg, 500kg and 1,000kg manual overhead cranes for sensitive equipment handling and maintenance.
Due to the nature of the clients facility and the overhead crane systems being set within the roofs of the chambers, it was not possible to have parallel running tracks and there was also a requirement to accommodate curves within the track to align to the chamber roof as closely as possible.
Our design team needed to consider a lifting solution with these considerations in mind whilst also addressing the reduced headroom working capacity.
The Solution
A specialist company who manufacture shielded chambers for synchrotron's, which are cyclic particle accelerators used for experimental purposes required a series of lightweight 250kg, 500kg and 1,000kg manual overhea cranes for maintenance purposes.
The systems provided by Hoist UK are housed within the Alba Synchrotron Radiation Facility in Barcelona, Spain and each of the lead lined chambers contain experimental apparatus which needs to be maintained on a regular basis and has components which require a safe method of lifting, so they are not damaged.
The systems each consist of a low headroom and manually operated articulated crane with hoist, and a set of tracks which are built into the roof
of the chamber.
The chambers are custom manufactured in the UK to cover the equipment housed within them, so the shapes are sometimes irregular which means that we have running tracks that are not parallel and also sometimes have curves in them.
Normally cranes require completely parallel tracks, but our systems uses our Eurosystem product which has been adapted to have a low headroom articulated trolley, so the carriage on either side of the chamber is allowed to follow the line of the track allowing the crane to move effortlessly without jamming even when out of square.
Hoist UK
"Every client we work with is unique and we enjoy the challenges every new project brings, but this project in particular posed many different challenges that needed careful planning and consideration to overcome. Not only did our lifting solution need to take into consideration the reduced headroom environment, we also had to design a solution for unparalleled tracks and curved beams to be incorporated into the Eurosystem".