Nordic Terminal Ltd has this year been using state of the art cranes for handling coils of steel in its warehouse at Immingham, a port on the east coast of England.
The two 40t safe working load M8 process coil-handling cranes were supplied by KCI Carruthers, which at the start of this year finally adopted the name KCI Konecranes (UK), 15 years after Carruthers – based in Scotland – was acquired by the Konecranes group.
Each crane has a span of 38m and can be controlled either from the operator’s cabins, which travel with the trolleys, or by Remox radio control which duplicate the cabin controls.
Below the hook, the cranes are each equipped with a set of magnets for lifting the steel coils. On either crane these can be substituted with a set of coil tongs which have been provided for lifting non-magnetic metals.
The cranes make full use of KCI’s proprietary DynA family of inverter drives, supporting the manufacturer’s claims to be at the leading edge of inverter drives in the crane industry.
The controls are designed to allow accurate positioning and increased operational throughput. The DynA inverter speed control systems reduce mechanical stress in components, reduce component wear and minimise load swing and maintenance costs.
DynAC is used for travel and traverse motions, while hoisting is controlled by DynAHoist inverter stepless crane drive systems. KCI’s extended speed range (ESR) is also included on the hoist which allows loads of up to 10t to be handled at 200% speed.
The crane hooks are fitted with power rotation, and DynAMove inverter control, programmed for either 90° increments or operator-selected position control for smooth operation. DynaAMove is effectively a smaller version of DynAC – up to 15kW compared with DynAC’s 1,200kW.
The cranes have overload and slack rope protection, and ultimate hoist limit switches. The overall efficiency is controlled by KCI’s CUI condition monitoring units.
Other features include girder and cabin mounted load displays, encoders for position control and data trans- fer, all controlled by programmable logic controller.
The Nordic Terminal cranes were commissioned in October 1999.
Husk contract More recently KCI Konecranes (UK) picked up a $1.6m contract to supply 11 cranes to Husk Injection Molding Systems of Dudelange, Luxembourg.
Five of the cranes are SM Spacemaker EOTs and the remainder are wall travelling jib cranes.
The five SM Spacemaker cranes are 200/50t, 160/50t, 70/32t, 63/32t and 50/20t with spans ranging from 24.5m to 30m. Each crane has DynAHoist inverter variable speed control on each hoist and DynAC inverter variable speed control on traverse and travel motions.
Specifications also include: Remox radio control with back-up pendant; condition monitoring; girder and trolley platforms; K-BAR long travel conductors; travel and traverse limit switches; festooned traverse cables; totally enclosed live axle drive transmissions; rubber buffers on travel and traverse; IP55 enclosures; and grouped lubrication. These cranes are scheduled for delivery in September.
The wall travelling jib cranes are 5t capacity and will be made by Konecranes’ operation in Belgium. They will then be delivered and installed by local service company Breva Konecranes SA in October.
