Going to Great Lengths

Eurobond, in partnership with Kera UK Ltd has successfully developed vacuum lifting equipment capable of installing panels up to 17m in length and 600kg in weight.

Presently, UK industry standard vacuum lifting equipment only has the capacity to lift panels under 400kg. The new vacuum brief was driven by Eurobond's desire to expand services offered and accommodate the ever growing demands on panel size (and subsequently weight). The scope of the project was to develop a bespoke piece of equipment capable of increasing by 50% the lifting capacity of readily available machinery without compromising safety of the structural integrity of the panel system.

Further investigation and experimentation centred on the manufacture of 15m panels here at Eurobond. No panel of this length had ever been produced and consequently handled. Consideration was given to the manufacture, packaging, wrapping, and lifting from the line. Storage and handling onto transport was also a consideration. Further to this, the standard lorry bed length is circa 12.6m so additional transport knowledge was required to overcome this aspect of the project.

Innovation is at the forefront of this development. Considerable research and development work was undertaken to produce a dual pump system capable of lifting a 600kg panel (each element of the dual system had to have the capacity to lift 600kg). This was necessary to ensure that should one element of the equipment fail, there would still be one half that would continue to support and hold a 600kg panel. Further work was undertaken to develop a structural steel frame to carry the vacuum lifting equipment and to cope with the considerable strain it would be put under.

Before any full scale trials could be conducted, initial development proposals were drawn up. Calculations were performed before full scale trials could be arranged to prove the feasibility of the approach. Final designs were approved and a project plan was then put in place to manufacture, test, accredit and trial the equipment.

Full scale trials were designed and scheduled in order to determine whether a 15m panel would be structurally strong enough for lifting by vacuum equipment across a 6m spread. This had never been done with a stone wool composite panel before, so the approach was ground breaking and pioneering in the extreme.

The trial programme set out to prove that panels could be handled, manoeuvred and installed in a variety of scenarios.

i) lifted vertically via a telehandler from the floor

ii) lifted vertically via a telehandler from a lorry bed

iii) lifted vertically via a crane from the floor

iv) lifted vertically via a crane from a lorry bed

As part of this process, handling and moving of panels in a stack, that is panels stacked after production for transportation, had to be established as Eurobond had never manufactured panels of this length before. It was determined that extended forks would be needed for the equipment already onsite. This proved viable and successful.

All four scenarios were trialed with success. A change in approach was necessary when handling panels via a crane (different lifting points and therefore stress upon the panel when lifted). Despite two broken/damaged panels, this problem was overcome on site with the aid of contractors Boss Design and led to the successful installation of 15m panels at a real site in Cardiff the new Glamorgan Records Office.

For more information on Glamorgan Record Office please click here