Precast
Concrete – Material Handling Solutions
for a Growing Industry
Pre-cast concrete
is replacing metal structures
in a wide variety of product
areas, from road and building
construction materials
to water handling equipment.
And North American Industries
is excited to be a part
of the pre-cast industry’s
expansion by providing its
manufacturers with durable,
reliable and affordable
overhead material handling
systems.
First and foremost
among the concerns of
a pre-cast facility is the durability
of a crane system. You need
reliability, and you
can't afford
downtime; you
would benefit greatly from
a true heavy duty crane.
A Class "D" crane--which
North American produces exclusively--is
designed to make twice as many lifts
in an hour and lift the full rated
load 30% more often than a moderate-duty
Class "C" crane. We urge
you to review our
technical report on Class "D" cranes for
more information.
The dust associated with cutting
and molding concrete and stone can
also pose serious problems for standard
cranes. North American's concrete
and stone dust package keeps the electrical
controls and motors safe from the
effects of airborne particles through
the use of totally enclosed motors
and gasketed control boxes.
If you are stripping molds vertically
out of forms, a hoist with true vertical
lift is important. North American
offers both wire rope and electric
chain hoists with true vertical lift.
Stripping wall
or prestress panels involves
tipping the product up, which
requires multiple hoists
and / or cranes—the same goes for the
flipping or turning of loads when
stripping molds. Moreover, suction
can occur just before forms break
loose from molds, which requires the
crane to have more capacity than the
rated load of the item might indicate.
A Class “D” crane from
North American Industries,
designed by experienced crane
engineers and
installed by expert technician
teams, is a highly reliable
way to address
all of these concerns.
Duty cycle is also unique in the
pre-cast business. There
are two very different stages of a
typical pre-cast
application, with unusual duty cycles:
- A few hours at the beginning of
the shift stripping
molds, which requires a high capacity
hoist. After this
stage, the crane
may be idle
for several hours,
as more molds are prepared.
- The crane system is then
extremely busy
for last couple of hours of the shift,
at
much lighter
capacity, pouring freshly
mixed concrete
into molds for
the next batch of items.
North American
Industries accomodates
this unusual duty cycle by incorporating
auxiliary hoists at lower
capacities into many
pre-cast concrete
crane
systems—or using the vast array
of design tools available
to come up with custom solutions
for the customer.
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