The Lift-N-Lock gantry system features cam locking, which immediately locks the load in place in the event of a loss of hydraulic pressure in the lift rams.The system was put to work when ECR installed a 150t mill shell (17m long by 5.3m diameter) at Queensland Cement’s Gladstone plant. It was chosen in preference to a crane because there was limited space available and steelwork was being erected around the foundation plinths that the mill would rest on. By using the gantry system, other contractors were able to continue with their steel erection.The scope of the project was to lift the mill shell from a six-axle self-propelled modular transport, move it 24m and place it on trunnions. Accurate placement was required, and ECR used Lift-N-Lock’s Responsive Optical Line Enhancer in conjunction with the hydraulics of the gantry. The move was complicated by the need to support the tracks along which the gantry moved on different levels of concrete.The project required two months of planning, while the lift itself required six hours for set-up; four hours to lift, move and place the mill shell; and four hours to disassemble the system and load it for transport. The system is transported on four standard semi-trailers, and required only a Franna to put it together.ECR also used the gantry to handle the mill shell when it was offloaded from a ship and stored in the stevedore’s yard; load it onto a 10-axle modular transport for transport by road to site six weeks later; and tranship it to the SPMT onsite, as restricted access would not allow the road trailer to be used onsite. Mill shell being placed on its trunnions.
