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[WRE | SPOTLIGHT]


A HIGH-TECH PROJECT Shines a Light on Composites


BY STEPHANIE KLEIN


ith a wingspan that stretches 131 feet—larger than that of a Boeing 737—the U.S. Navy’s MQ-4C Triton Drone is the latest in drone technology. Based on the Army’s Global Hawk Drone, and tailored to perform in a maritime environment, the Triton has a range of 2,000 nautical miles and can operate at an altitude of 56,000 feet. Te drone is also able to stay in flight for up to 24 hours, while an advanced radar system allows it to survey an area the size of the Amazonian rain forest in a single mission.


W


To say the Triton Drone is unique would be putting it mildly, because it’s not just the drone itself that is distinctive, but also the process by which it was tested in the developmental phase. Typically, drone tests require hundreds of hours of flight time, and multiple additional aircraft to monitor the drone in flight. Te Triton, however, had to undergo something completely different—withstanding a new electromagnetic testing process while remaining suspended for eight weeks inside a tightly controlled and monitored studio environment. Due to the nature of the testing—which included radar and other communications—a non-conductive, non-interfering alternative to traditional rigging materials, such as wood and steel, had to be identified and used. Enter the Caldwell Group.


A Logical Choice After accepting the Navy’s Triton rigging challenge in late 2014, CERTEX Lifting Products (Houston, Texas) quickly reached out to the Caldwell Group (Rockford, Illinois) to engineer and manufacture a lifting system to support the Triton inside the NAS Patuxent River Anechoic Chamber (St. Mary’s County, Maryland) during its two months of specialized testing. At the time, Caldwell had recently released its


Dura-Lite™ Composite Lifting and Spreader beam product line. Te Anechoic Chamber required a material that did not interfere with the electromagnetic testing. Non-conductive and non-corrosive (and invisible to radar), the composite beams were a perfect match, and Caldwell was a logical choice for the project. An industry-leading below-the-hook lifting solutions


manufacturer since their founding in 1954, Caldwell has developed countless new solutions for both complex and common material-handling applications—currently producing nine unique product lines.


22 JANUARY–FEBRUARY 2017 WIRE ROPE EXCHANGE


Doug Stitt presents at LiftEx 2016 in Aberdeen, UK


Caldwell manufactured the main lifting beam, spreader beams, and wing cradles, while CERTEX provided shackles and manufactured the slings for the lifting system. All sub-assemblies were tested at Caldwell’s manufacturing facility and then shipped to NAS Patuxent River.


“Tis project landed in our lap at just the right time,” said Doug Stitt, president of Caldwell. “If CERTEX had come to us on day one of development, there’d have been no way to support it.”


Fortunately, Caldwell was already a year down the road in their development of a new composite lifting beam. So they accepted the challenge from CERTEX, assembled their team, and then got to work bringing the patented composite and spreader beam to market. Stitt, who is also the president of J.C. Renfroe (a manufacturer of lifting clamps, sheaves, swivels, and blocks) as well as the U.S. faction of the AWRF (Associated Wire Rope Fabricators), is the first to acknowledge that both composites and adhesives sound like a strange fit for rigging applications. But, as he pointed out to the crowd assembled for his presentation


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