Bombardier selects Street Crane for advanced wing production 12 April 2012

Bombardier Aerospace in Belfast is using three overhead cranes of five tonnes safe working load to help in the production of its latest composite aircraft wings.

Supplied by Street Crane, two have a 20 metre span between the rails and one 25 metres, with the crane rails an integral part of the roof structure.

Each of the cranes also has cantilevered extensions to the crane beam for extended reach – effected by the cranes being underslung from the tracks, and the hoists in turn underslung from the crane bridge.

Street Crane managing director Andrew Pimblett says this results in a compact crane that operates in a confined height envelope with the ability to traverse the load beyond the track line. The cranes have thus achieved Bombardier Aerospace's requirement to keep the production area unobstructed and free of crane supports.

Meanwhile, in Bombardier's main production area, an unusual wide-span, single-girder, 20-tonne, four-axis jiggle crane has been installed. Features include a bridge equipped with 15 and 10 tonnes hoists. The first hoist takes most of the weight of the wing, while the second provides lateral adjustment – allowing the wing to be rotated by 600mm with an additional plus or minus 300mm rotation around the beam axis.

Even more unusually, in the assembly area Street has installed an eight-tonne, double girder, underslung turntable crane with twin rotating hoists. This design permits the suspended wings to rotate by 200 degrees at the same time as being transported across the full 52 metre bridge.

Pimblett explains that the turntable is in effect a small double girder crane running on a circular track rail mounted on a five metre wide trolley.

"There is certainly not another crane of this design in the UK and I doubt if there is another anywhere in the world," states Pimblett.

"There is an 80 metre span double girder underslung crane at Heathrow Airport. This was one of the most unusual cranes that Street has ever built, but the Bombardier crane is in a class above anything ever done in suspended crane systems."

Brian Tinham

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