Street Cranes in Nigeria

Street Crane is celebrating orders from Wedge Galvanizing and Doman Long Enigneering with a combined value of £300,000.

Wedge Galvanizing has purchased two special 10 tonne double girder cranes for their Worksop plant where they are modernising to increase crane lifting capability and improve material throughput.

The new cranes, each double girder with hoists of 10 tonnes safe working load, will be used in the pre-treatment bay for sequential de-greasing, rinsing and fluxing of components and large structures prior to hot-dip galvanizing.

The new cranes at Worksop join two existing Street units in the pre-treatment workshops. Pendulum crane control has been selected, but provision is included for the installation of radio control in the future.

Commenting on the particular technical requirements in galvanizing operations, Street Crane's sales manager Gus Zona explained, ‘The cranes need to withstand continuous heavy usage in a demanding environment and yet provide flexibility. Hoist mechanisms are therefore rated heavy duty M6/M7.’

‘During preparation, smaller building components mounted on jigs, or large structural steel elements, supported by a beam, are chemically treated by dipping prior to galvanizing. To achieve the required results, load lowering and raising speeds need to be finely controlled to ensure that the steel is exposed for the correct time and excess chemicals can be drained before moving to the next process. Appropriately rated motors have been installed to meet these differing speed demands.’

The cranes have a special protection against the corrosive environment, controls are housed in IP55 environmentally sealed enclosures, electrical wiring is in non-PVC sheathed cable and brake seal materials have been selected to withstand the adverse site conditions.

Dorman Long Engineering is buying three double girder overhead cranes, each with five tonnes safe working load and two semi-Goliath travelling cranes, each with twin hoists of five tonnes safe working load. The cranes are engineered for demanding and continuous use in a hot and dusty environment, and can operate in pairs, or singly for production flexibility.

The new cranes are headed to Nigeriafor a new galvanizing plant with an annual capacity of 50,000 tonnes. This is the first major galvanizing plant in Nigeria, built as part of an initiative by the Nigerian government to develop local engineering capacity for the energy and construction industries. The galvanizing plant is also a part of Dorman Long's major expansion of Nigerian operations.

‘Street was one of three companies tendering for the business. They offered cranes specially engineered to meet our needs and appropriate to the process environment, rather than standard cranes,’ explained Michael Hamilton of Dorman Long.

Street Crane will supply the designs and the electro-mechanical components from the UK. The heavy structural elements will be fabricated in Nigeria by Dorman Long Engineering to Street's specifications.

Both projects are due to be delivered before the end of the year.