NUCLEAR
tolerances and uneven shotcrete lining made the lift extremely complex. A heavy-lift crane provided the main lifting power but could not give the precise control that was needed to lower the formwork without collision with the shaft walls. Nor could it achieve exact alignment with the tunnels. Scottish company Red Rooster Lifting supplied the solution in the form of four 50t air hoists; the hoists were used to fine-tune the lowering process, providing accurate control in areas where the crane alone could not. Red Rooster supplied the hoists on a rental basis, saving the project from unnecessary capital expenditure. Red Rooster Lifting also supplied air hoists for another part of the tunnelling there. A key operation required the repeated lifting and positioning of a large circular shuttering pan up a vertical shaft between successive concrete pours. The shuttering pan needed to be raised smoothly and safely in confined conditions. This work happened directly beneath a
seawater-exclusion plug, so the lifting system had to deliver consistent precision and absolute reliability. Eleven 2t air hoists provided that. Operators also needed simultaneous multi-hoist control to keep each lift stable and balanced. At the same time they required individual hoist selection for fine alignment as the pan reached its set position. Nor was that all: a separate system was also necessary to lift goods between platform levels. To meet these technically demanding requirements, the eleven hoists were arranged as two sets of five plus one spare unit to ensure operational continuity. Red Rooster’s engineers devised a custom-designed control panel that enabled the client to select and operate the hoists either individually or simultaneously. Four hoists in each set were used in tandem to lift the circular shuttering pan between concrete pours. The fifth hoist in each set acted as the dedicated goods hoist, transferring materials to various platform levels working through trapdoors in the shaft.
The Davis-Besse Nuclear Power Station.
www.hoistmagazine.com | November/December 2026 | 23
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