Recently, Kristian Electric manufactured, supplied, and installed four top running single girder (TRSG) overhead bridge cranes for a new maintenance facility located outside Calgary, Alberta. We were thrilled to provide custom cranes and Demag hoists once again for this aeroderivative industrial gas turbine service corporation.
Out of the four cranes installed, three were rated for 2-tonne capacity, with the fourth rated for a 4-tonne capacity with 2 x 2 Ton hoists. With four individual runway systems and crane spans ranging from 33.5 to 52.5 feet long, this was no small project for our Kristian crane team!
We supplied all four cranes with five identical Demag DMR 3 modular rope hoists, a favorite for this customer due to their durability, reliability, and precision. Each crane is controlled with an 8-button, 3-motion Panther remote control system from our friends at Tele Radio.
After building the cranes in-house at our Edmonton manufacturing facility, they made their way to the Calgary area on two trucks for installation. As anyone in the crane business knows, installing multiple bridge cranes of this magnitude is a complex task that demands expertise and precision, and luckily, we had just the team for the job.
The first thing our Calgary installation team had to do was remove the top crane and set it on dunnage while we unloaded and installed the second crane ASAP.
How do you move multiple overhead cranes off a truck effectively and into a facility for installation? With a 10K Telehandler, that's how! Project Coordinator, Wayne, even snapped a rare photo from the Telehandler controls while he waited for our technician to get the lifting lug mounted.
These crane systems featured three parallel runways as three of the bridges run east/west in the facility while the last crane runs north/south.
When it came to the far south 2 Ton crane with the largest span (52.5’), our install team knew that we could not take it into the building with only one Telehandler. While the Telehandler could reach, if the crane was picked from the end, it would be too much weight for having the boom straight out. We addressed this issue by using another contractor’s Telehandler to grab the girder on the opposite end to walk it into the building.
Since we were dealing with a very tight corner and were limited by an obstruction 43 ft straight in, our team had to carefully work the 52.5’ span girder around the corner and turn it around to move it into place for installation.
Luckily for our crane installation team, the real challenge was transporting the bridge cranes into the new facility. With that out of the way, completing the installation itself was a breeze!
While the mix of capacities, variable span lengths, and facility limitations on this project posed an excellent test of the skills of our Calgary crane install team, they passed with flying colors.
In the end, it was all worth it as these overhead bridge cranes will be indispensable industrial workhorses, enhancing the efficiency and productivity at our customer's new facility.
If you are in the process of building or updating a facility with new overhead bridge cranes or are just in need of a custom crane solution in Calgary, Edmonton or Saskatoon – contact our team at Kristian Electric today!
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