THE PROJECT CRS Canada’s CRS has designed a four-hoist system to operate deep underground…
mine in Saskatchewan, Western Canada. Attached to an elevator, the crane is used for the
O Shop load testing the runout system in full extension.
removal of the steel structures that help facilitate the mining of potash – such as beams – from the bottom of the shaft onto the elevator for transport 1km up the mine shaft. When undergrounded it reaches out beyond the elevator to access the load, before tucking away within the elevator structure to avoid interfering with the shaft on the way up. The process of producing the crane began when the client – which had worked with CRS on previous, more standard, projects – approached the Canada- based overhead crane company with a concept it wasn’t entirely sure was workable. “They came to us and said, ‘Hey, we have a concept for a lifting system and want to know if it is feasible,”says Chris Roots, vice president of sales, at CRS. “We did some preliminary calculations and concept sketches and reviewed the requirements with component suppliers and our own engineering team and confirmed with them that ‘yeah – we can make this work’. We then just had to prove it all with the actual designs as opposed to the hand sketches. [But] based on our initial planning we were confident we were going to make everything work and accepted the contract.” CRS faced several challenges that had to be
overcome: the client wanted a crane that could handle different lifting scenarios using up to four hoists, which required the structural design to include distinct categorisation of loads; plus CRS had to maintain high safety requirements while keeping the unit weight within elevator load limitations, and ensure control of the system and its programming due to the high number of inputs and outputs. Then there was the issue of the crane working in
an environment with limited space. “They had very limited space to fit the crane
system into – it couldn't be extended. So it was either everything was going to fit or it just wasn't going to work,” explains Roots. Using SolidWorks software, the design went
Load testing above ground while checking the rotational function at the same time at the mine site 6 | Spring 2024 |
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through several revisions. “We work through everything with detailed 3D modelling,” says Roots. “We went through almost nine months of design – back and forth – and modelling to address all of the clearance issues and operational requirements before we finalised on the actual design.”
verhead crane firm CRS has designed and manufactured a custom-made solution to operate deep underground at a potash
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