Customer: Industrial, Environmental & Heavy Civil Construction Company

Description: Headquartered in the South (of the U.S.) the company has annual sales over $300 million and operates in 18 states. The company is primarily invovled in highways, street, and industrial building construction.

Problem: The Louisiana Dept. of Transportation awarded a $137M job to the construction company to build an eight-mile, two-lane elevated highway between Leeville and Port Fourchon including a new high-level bridge at Leeville with a southbound toll facility. The construction company had to build in front of them as they went forward extending the road further but placement of material handling equipment was limited due to the swampy bayou area over which the elevated road was being built. The construction company wanted to place a crawler type crane on a large platform that would be able to move forward as the project progressed. Railroad bogies and other ideas were explored but were deemed too expensive or ineffective.

Solution: North American Industries engineered and built end truck mechanisms to drive the platforms forward. Over a four month period, as the construction company adjusted their figures for size and weight of the platforms and the load they would support, North American Industries had to determine the proper size and design for the mechanisms that would drive the platforms. North American Industries’ final design criterion is for a load of 2.2 million lbs (550 kips per corner of the platform, operating on 104 lb/yd rail). Each platform travels on four endtruck assemblies with eight wheels at each corner. Two out of every group of eight wheels are driven all from one master control. The four endtruck assemblies were designed for synchronized operation from a single adjustable frequency drive housed in a NEMA 4 watertight enclosure. All equipment was constructed for outdoor weather conditions and the endtruck assemblies were built with hurricane locking devices to prevent damage in the event of a storm.