Cranes.

[BrokenBiker]

I always found it amusing that my old boy can’t switch a laptop on but can make the computer in a 1200t liebherr dance

The computer in those old 1200's were waaayyyy more complicated than they needed to be as well

 

[Tinbasherdan]

I was working down at HMNB Portsmouth a few years ago, they were setting up a mobile crane to lift a mobile crane off the deck of one of the carriers.
As we watched I commented that surely the crane they were using wasn't big enough to lift that other one. Then we cracked on with our job.
On the news that evening was a report that a dockside mobile crane had toppled over and was leaning against the carrier...
They couldn't exactly keep it quiet, you could see it from Gosport

Years ago they dropped a 30m JLG off the flight deck of one of the ships in build, sling slipped as it came over the side. Left quite a mess

 

[BrokenBiker]

Years ago they dropped a 30m JLG off the flight deck of one of the ships in build, sling slipped as it came over the side. Left quite a mess

You'll get that on those big jobs

Don't tell my boss I said that, I almost got evicted from a site for saying it when the site agent was giving us a HS lecture after an apprentice chippie sliced through his wrist with a buzz saw.

 

[Tinbasherdan]

You'll get that on those big jobs

Don't tell my boss I said that, I almost got evicted from a site for saying it when the site agent was giving us a HS lecture after an apprentice chippie sliced through his wrist with a buzz saw.

Oh there was plenty of them. Few I can go into in detail! I always make a point of mentioning that it’s not that bad, up until the early 1900s there was an expected death toll for a given tonnage of ship

 

[Turbo]

Just a few pics of these big beast at York putting a new foot bridge in.
There’s at least one crane lover on here…… nmp..

It's hard to picture how big these are until you see an artic flatbed in the background looking small!

 

[Pete.]

I’ve only ever been client-side when thinking about cranes and lifts… I’m the fool that rings and says, “can you take a look at this…?”

Some notable lifts included a fully ballasted 500-tonne located inside an operational prison (slight frisson of excitement when the Governor asked if we were de-rigging and taking it out each evening), lifting 22 tonnes at a 54m radius.

I suppose the other ‘big’ lift was a six crane tandem lift - 5 x 350 tonne, plus 1 x 500 tonne lifting a single roof canopy of 60m x 75m weighing 220 tones. That was fun, particularly as the HSE said they’d never seen this done before and ‘would it be OK if they came to watch’. They then extended the invitation to all the Main Contractor teams on the site (erm… just a small site… London 2012 set-up) so we had an audience of 50 or so hi-viz clad observers…

Thing was, the overall building was 60m x 240m so we repeated the lift on the following two days - three consecutive tandem lifts (and then the same when we dismantled after the Olympics).

Or there was the time we lifted a 60 tonne crane into the moat of the Tower of London with 180 tonne crane located on Tower Hill - I could go on…!

How did they control the lift progress? Was it done by watching the load meter on each crane and keeping withina narrow range, or by monitoring the height of the load at serveral points and inching the cranes up, or some other means?

 

[BrokenBiker]

How did they control the lift progress? Was it done by watching the load meter on each crane and keeping withina narrow range, or by monitoring the height of the load at serveral points and inching the cranes up, or some other means?

With a tandem lift of any scale you should have an AP present to act as a lift coordinator. During the initial lift to ensure all cranes are accounting for boom deflection you will instruct each crane to hold their radius and take a certain weight, then Increase that weight in increments until the load is just about to come up, visually indicated by the load 'floating'. Once it is officially up, all cranes are instructed to 'pinch up' which is simply hoist up slowly. Then it comes down to the crane ops to watch each others progress and also the coordinator to watch from ground level and instruct each crane as necessary via their identified call signs that they either need to speed up or slow down as necessary until the desired height is achieved. For any movements away from the initial position it will be down to the coordinator to instruct individual cranes to slew or float to keep the load level while moving and each crane within it's chart, plus each cranes hoist rope needs to remain as vertical as possible which is achieved with the use of slew brakes, floating the load while another is slewing or if 1 crane is close to it's destination you can release their slew brakes and allow another to push/pull with the weight of the load as long as that only results in a slew motion, any deviation to/from the cranes centre of slew needs to be accounted for with boom movement. It gets more complicated if you have cranes with wildly different capacities as a lower capacity crane may be restricted to lifting directly over the back or +/-10° from 0° which is directly over the back) but generally you try and spec each crane similarly and ideally so all cranes are always inside both charts (tipping and structural charts, my crane will stop you at 100%, however this only means you are at the end of the tipping range, you can over ride that and go to 130% but you have to pay very close attention to outrigger pressures, specifically the riggers behind you and also to the lean angle of the crane...but you will still be within the structural capacity of the crane although it is very easy to put yourself in a situation where you have 0 in the rigger behind you and very little in the rigger next to it but still be well within the 100% chart I have a photo somewhere I will try and find tonight of a very sketchy lift that could have gone belly up in a second but was still within both charts)

I do a reasonable amount of tandems, did one Friday on a silo to top/tail it, with an inexperienced op to act as main crane (my decision as what's the point in me doing it, when it's easy for me, he can learn from it) so we had him pick it up with me stood on his side step to instruct and watch over him, then once it was up I got back in mine, hooked to the bottom and as I was hoisting up I had him hoist down and slew away from me to remove any twisting effect on the silo Then placed it down flat. It had to be moved to my side of the area but again, it's a teachable moment so got matey into my crane to again fully lift it and move it over to final destination. He learnt a fair bit about how the position and angle of the load makes a big difference to how it's lifted and got experience in a different model crane.

 

[harveyp6]

It's hard to picture how big these are until you see an artic flatbed in the background looking small!

The cranes are close to you, but the artics are far away........

I believe Father Ted explained it rather well years back.......

 

[bourbon]

Makes FLT driving sound easy!

 

[BrokenBiker]

Makes FLT driving sound easy!

Cranes are simple when you learn how to catch the swing...and then how to not get the swing in the first place...sounds daft but the heavier stuff is easier. I've been throwing 17 ton gantry crane sections around today and it's so much simpler than say a 3 ton concrete slab...the heavier stuff behaves better

 

[bourbon]

The guys at work using the gantry cranes throwing 18 ton press tools about. Some were good, others less so. one bloke broke his pelvis, when he trapped himself between two of them.

 

[BrokenBiker]

The guys at work using the gantry cranes throwing 18 ton press tools about. Some were good, others less so. one bloke broke his pelvis, when he trapped himself between two of them.

They aren't to underestimated...18 ton takes a fair bit of stopping

 

[bourbon]

They aren't to underestimated...18 ton takes a fair bit of stopping

It was a pain when they slung them over your head. They were supposed to be not more than three foot off the floor!

 

[BrokenBiker]

It was a pain when they slung them over your head. They were supposed to be not more than three foot off the floor!

They arent supposed to be over head either...HSE would have a field day...standard and required aspect of any RAMS for lifting activities is to avoid lifting over personnel at all costs, the risk isn't worth the 8 seconds of time saved...

 

[Agroshield]

How did they control the lift progress?

There are some interesting techniques shown in this video, including what is basically a plumb bob with a scale behind it:

 

[8ob]

Never seems to be a shortage of cameras kicking about to film the lifts that go very wrong. Considering the monumental costs involved you would have thought lift failures would be extremely rare.

Bob

 

[Pete.]

There are some interesting techniques shown in this video, including what is basically a plumb bob with a scale behind it:

I'm very familiar with lifting operations as it forms a large part of my work, though the lifting is always incidentsl to my own task. I just wondered how the lift was controlled with so many separate pieces of equipment sharing the load simultaneously.

This was my job last year. Cutting off a lighthouse at sea bed level. 170 tons here.

 

[BrokenBiker]

Never seems to be a shortage of cameras kicking about to film the lifts that go very wrong. Considering the monumental costs involved you would have thought lift failures would be extremely rare.

Bob

For the amount of lifts that are done they are very rare (in civilised countries)

 

[8ob]

For the amount of lifts that are done they are very rare (in civilised countries)

Rare but makes big news when it all goes mammaries up.

Bob

 

[BrokenBiker]

Rare but makes big news when it all goes mammaries up.

Bob

We don't mess about...when we have an issue, we make sure it's a big one