No crane should drop its load, but some times it is rather more crucial than others. This crane, for example, seen on Ederer’s shop floor just after customer acceptance testing, has recently been installed in a US nuclear power plant where it handles spent nuclear fuel storage flasks.
It is equipped with Ederer’s Extra Safety And Monitoring (X-SAM) system which enables hoists to retain their rated load following hoisting machinery failure, two-blocking or other severe overloading accidents. The system also protects against potentially disastrous mis-spooling of the wire rope on the hoisting drum, the manufacturer says.
Generically accepted by the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Ederer’s X-SAM system is installed in numerous nuclear facilities around the world and is also used extensively in space launch facilities and other such applications where loads simply must not be dropped.