Stack ’em up

BVS Cranes has delivered a new, slab stacking gantry crane lifting solution to a steel producer located in the Marmara region of Turkey.

As part of the slab steel production process, after the slabs are made they are taken to an area to cool down. They are stacked in batches, usually on top of each other based on their thicknesses and steel qualities, after which they are moved once more, to another stock area at the steel mill or to be shipped to the customer.

Two gantry cranes operate on the same rail. Each crane has two hoists, providing in total an overall safe working load (SWL) capacity of 130 tons (each hoist has a capacity of 65 tons). The bridge spans a total of 57.75m with two cantilevers on both sides and has a lifting height of 11m. The crane has a 5m classification, meaning it is suitable for heavy-duty work. In this case, the crane is designed to operate in a hot and harsh environment where continuous steel casting processes prevail, and work daily at a very high frequency and with full loads. As the slabs and billets are long products, it is usual that two-hoist cranes are used in order to distribute the load evenly between the hoists as much as possible.

The cranes also come with underhook tongs, anti-sway and radar anti-collision systems, an automatic greasing system, 24 bridge wheels and 12 bogie groups.

Aluminothermic welding was used for the trolley rails to enable a continuous rail structure and therefore smooth running of trolleys on the bridge.

The whole system took eight months to come to fruition, from the design phase through to final delivery. All the design details were based on the customer’s preferences and detailed specifications. Equipment – such as the motors, gearboxes, brakes and electrical room equipment, anti-sway and radar anti-collision systems – were all made in Western Europe.

BVS also supplied transfer trolleys in the same project, to carry steel slabs from the building to the yard and vice versa.

BVS Cranes is the largest crane manufacturer in Turkey with manufacturing space in excess of 100,000m2 across three factories. It also employs over 480 people and exports to 93 countries in six continents.

In other news, in late 2023 BVS Cranes was awarded a large contract from Deutsche Bahn – the national railway company of Germany and a state-owned enterprise – to build four container cranes for two terminals in Germany, which are due to be delivered in 2025.