Customised gantry solution from Reid Lifting

UK lightweight gantry and davit crane manufacturer Reid Lifting (Reid) provided a custom version of its 1000 kg capacity Porta-Gantry system to a wastewater treatment facility in Ajman, United Arab Emirates. The Porta-Gantry was used to lift 600 kg blower motors free from acoustic housings for maintenance, repair, and replacement.

Reid said it was approached by engineering, procurement and construction firm Black & Veatch – part of Ajman Sewerage’s joint venture ownership. Subsequently Reid organised a site visit with its local regional partner Tools Middle East. According to Reid this revealed the complexity of the lift.

Reid said the project, located in Ajman, the capital city of the emirate of the same name, presented a number of challenges. First, only panels at the front and back of the motors’ acoustic housing were easily accessible. Second, there was only 390 mm of headroom between the motors’ lifting point and the top panel of the enclosures. Further, the flooring was uneven and access was difficult.

Reid managing director Nick Battersby elaborated, “The motors were located on a plinth and we had to utilise a sloping walkway; the floor was uneven on the other side of the acoustic housings, too. The solution had to accommodate the extremely tight headroom and the ground conditions.”

A raft of alternative solutions had already been ruled out by personnel at the plant, Reid revealed. Battersby explained, “An [Ajman] engineer told us he had previously been presented with a number of alternative solutions, ranging in cost from £15k up to £75k, but they didn’t have faith in utilising a mini crawler crane, among other suggested methods. With some ingenuity we were able to provide a more viable solution at a fraction of the cost [approx. £4.5k].”

Reid customised its PG1000 Porta-Gantry, providing it with a bespoke trolley system and pick-up bar, with wind-up jack legs. Reid said it created a ‘gull wing’ attachment (white in colour in the photos) to create lifting points higher than the top of the beam. Two hand chain hoists, one on each side, were rigged to this take the load further down the motors, lift them off fixtures and then free from the housings.

A four-metre-long beam was threaded through the open enclosures and mounted on two frames, the uprights of which provided rough height adjustment in 50 mm increments, before being levelled using the jack legs’ height control. Reid said this enabled it to take the top of the beam to within a couple of millimetres of the top of the enclosure.

Reid concluded that in this way the customised PG1000 not only met the challenges of the application but also presented Black & Veatch with an economic system that requires little maintenance, is easy to assemble and simple to use. The PG1000 has remained onsite for use on other projects.

 “It is testament to the strength of our global network that we are able to apply our engineering expertise and lifting solutions to diverse, niche applications like this,” closed Battersby.