APPLICATION REPORT | GANTRY CRANES
ICONIC CRANES CROWN BELFAST
R Konecranes goliath crane components en route to Brazil
bigger. Many tower above their yards and cities and become iconic and well-loved landmarks. A 1,600t gantry crane at the Hyundai Heavy Industries shipyard in Ulsan, South Korea, was moved there after a long service in Sweden and is known as the ‘Tears of Malmo’ crane, because the citizens of that city are said to have wept when it left them. Two-trolley systems, with a large and a smaller one travelling independently on the same beam, allow them to rotate large components, and modern digital controls can give pinpoint positioning of loads.
A peculiarity of large gantry cranes is that
they are asymmetrical. At one end the leg is rectangular. At the other it is frequently a slender A-frame. The reason comes down to size and thermal expansion. The beam is so long that it expands by a significant amount in warm weather. The rails on the ground stay a fixed distance apart. The discrepancy would lead to unacceptable stresses and wear on wheels, rails and structure. The A-frame legs are therefore hinged at the top, where they meet the girder, which eliminates that effect. Konecranes, among others, offer both
R Samson and Goliath. Credit: August Schwerdfeger
Large gantry cranes are sometimes known as Goliaths; the name may come from one of a landmark pair that tower at Queen’s Island in Belfast dockyard and that have become a symbol of the city. The cranes were named Samson and Goliath after the Biblical story in which the diminutive Samson slays the giant Goliath; of the crane pair, Goliath is actually slightly the smaller of the two. It stands 96m high – its companion is 106m; each crane has a capacity of 840t. They were built by Krupp in 1969
(Goliath) and 1974 (Samson). Each has a span of 140m and can lift to a height of 70m. The dry dock over which they lift is claimed to be the 11th largest in the world at over 550 metres long. They were used until 2003, when
the yard ceased to be involved in shipbuilding and refocused on design and structural engineering. There were proposals to sell or demolish the now- redundant cranes However, later in the year they were scheduled as historic monuments.
R Intermodal Gantry cranes are not new: a stagecoach being transferred to a railway wagon, France, 1844
single-girder and double-girder designs. A single girder has two advantages. The first is that it uses less material, and therefore weighs less, meaning lower investment costs. The second is again a consequence of the long beam length. When one of the girders is warmed by the sun, it expands more than its shaded neighbour, bringing unwanted stresses and deformations. A single girder conducts heat from its sunny to its shaded side, equalising the temperature and removing that bending effect. ●
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