The Usefulness of A Portable Gantry In Applications That Require Lifting Heavy Loads
Gantries excel at lifting large and/or heavy loads. The very heaviest loads typically require static gantries. For many applications, however, portable gantries are an effective and affordable solution. Here are just five reasons why portable gantries are useful in applications that require lifting heavy loads.
Gantries Are Robust And Stable
Using a portable gantry provides robust and stable support for lifting heavy loads. This ensures that lifting processes can be undertaken safely as well as quickly and accurately.
The level of robustness offered by a portable lifting gantry depends largely on the material from which it is made. A steel gantry is the most robust option. Provided that steel gantries are used appropriately (e.g. within their capacity), they can withstand even the most challenging conditions. Steel’s one potential vulnerability is corrosion. This vulnerability can, however, be mitigated by protective coatings (e.g. paint or galvanising).
An aluminium portable gantry is less robust than an equivalent steel one, although it does have inherent resistance to corrosion. With that said, for some use cases, it can be worth trading off the robustness of a steel gantry for the lightness of an aluminium one.
The stability of a portable lifting gantry is partly determined by the material from which it is made and partly by its design. Well-designed gantries have bases that distribute the weight of the load evenly. They may also have additional stabilising components, such as outriggers.
Gantries Are Versatile
By choosing a portable gantry over a static gantry you gain extra versatility. A portable lifting gantry is designed to adapt to a variety of environments and lifting requirements. SHEARFORCE portable gantries offer the very highest levels of versatility due to their unique rotating heads.
The fact that SHEARFORCE portable lifting gantries have heads that can rotate through approximately 30° means that their bases can be offset. This makes them much easier to install even in the most challenging of environments. For example, they can be deployed in confined spaces, spaces with uneven floors and spaces with obstacles.
Gantries Have A High Load Capacity
Although portable gantry lifting systems are not designed to handle the same sort of weight as some static gantries, they can still have a high load capacity. For example, a SHEARFORCE portable gantry can have a maximum safe working capacity of 3000 kg (about 3.3 tons).
This level of capacity means that a portable gantry lifting system can be invaluable in working situations that cannot support a static gantry but do need heavy weights to be lifted.
For example, construction sites may operate over too short a term to justify deploying a static gantry. They do, however, almost invariably have large and/or heavy items that need to be lifted. A portable steel gantry is, therefore, an obvious solution.
Gantries Are Reliable
Gantries have been used continually since at least the 15th century. Since that time, static gantries have become much more sophisticated. In fact, static gantries are now often integrated into automated systems driven by artificial intelligence (AI).
By contrast, portable gantries are still largely the same as their historical counterparts. In other words, they are very low-tech solutions. As such, there is very little that can go wrong with them (assuming they are used per the manufacturer’s instructions). Furthermore, they are very simple to assemble, dismantle and maintain.
Portable Gantries Are Easy To Store And Transport
By definition, a portable gantry is designed to be moved from one place to another on a regular basis. They are therefore designed with this in mind.
For example, as standard, SHEARFORCE portable steel gantry comes in bags with wheels at one end. This enables them to be manoeuvred easily and lifted by cranes or forktrucks. Upon request, they can be packaged in boxes designed to fit on forklift tangs. Either option is easy to stow as cargo.
To find out more about how you can prevent your employees from risk and danger whilst they work please get in touch with SHEARFORCE today!
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