DEMM Engineering & Manufacturing
Precision and safety for heavy lifts sees delivery of EVO Synchronous Lifting System to Trident Australia
Trident Australia’s WA branch has expanded its range of hydraulic technology to include the latest Enerpac EVO synchronous lifting system, which provides accuracy, safety and productivity benefits for precision lifting of heavy machinery, sometimes exceeding several thousand tons.
The system, which controls up to 12 lift points per unit (and up to four units can be ‘daisy chained’ together to lift up to 48 points from a single master control unit) delicately lifts, shifts and weighs even irregularly shaped structures, which must be precisely handled for safety, ongoing reliability and integrity of structures in industries such as building and construction, engineering, mining, energy, oil and gas, manufacturing and materials handling, ship building and materials testing.
For complex lifting jobs, the EVO Series Synchronous Lifting System replaces the need to manually coordinate multiple lifting points dispersed around a job by integrating the highpressure hydraulic cylinders involved with a PLC system to monitor and control precise movement and positioning of heavy loads. Through an integrated HMI (Human Machine Interface), all movements are managed from a central control position that displays live operation with real-time status updates for each lifting position.
“The EVO system has been one of the most successful products we’ve stocked,” says Trident Australia General Manager, Jono Hansen. “It’s been a great investment for us, because companies often want to use it for a single project and can’t justify buying it outright, so renting it from us is a much better option,” he said.
“As an authorised Enerpac distributor, stocking the EVO was a logical choice for us,” says Hansen. “A lot of our customers need to lift large structures or heavy machinery, and the safety, precision and ease-of-use of the EVO system makes it a popular choice,” he said.
Trident specialise in providing complete solutions for high pressure and specification f luid systems and components. They offer manufacturing and design of unique equipment as well as rentals, training, servicing and ongoing support to customers in the oil and gas, mining, building and construction and other industries that utilise hydraulic equipment.
The new EVO synchronous system offers eight standard hydraulic control modes and can control four, eight or 12 points with one hydraulic power unit (HPU). A master control unit is also available that offers daisy chain control of up to 4 EVO systems, giving a maximum of 48 lifting points.
Enerpac’s WA Territory Manager, Josh Allen, recently completed EVO system training with the Trident Australia team and Canning Vale. “The guys loved it,” said Allen. “Time saving is a big advantage of synchronous lifting. The process does not have to be stopped after any incremental value, checked, manually remeasured and corrected. The EVO-System carries out these actions during the entire lifting process, even with low lifting or lowering speeds. Depending on the application, time savings up to 60 percent can be achieved. This keeps Trident’s customers very happy,” he said.
Safety
Safety benefits of the PLC-controlled system include elimination of the potential for error with the multi-operator manual control approach. The digitally precise EVO-system incorporates warnings and stop functions. It offers full monitoring and control, with programmable failsafe monitoring and safety alarms.
“The precision control offered by the EVO system reduces the risk of structural damage by bending, twisting or tilting due to uneven weight distribution or load-shifts between lifting points,” says Allen.
The easy-to-use and very user-friendly touch screen interface displays the movement process, cylinder positions and load read-outs by lifting points and total load.
Enerpac’s synchronous lifting technology monitors and manages lifting, lowering, weighing, centre of gravity, alignment and load transfer procedures of non-uniformly distributed heavy loads. The system incorporates a variable frequency drive ( VDF) motor, which facilitates lowering of engine speeds and oil f lows as required to optimise control of the speed of lifting. This feature also makes it possible to use the system with various capacities of cylinders.
Using this ability to safely and precisely control lifting operations, as well as input parameters for load and stroke tolerance, users can safely and efficiently perform challenging lifting applications.
“The EVO-Series System allows one device to control the entire lifting operation while providing status updates at every point of the process, without the need for manual monitoring. By digitally monitoring and controlling lifting operations, users enhance safety and eliminate costly downtime vs. manual operations.”