March 28 - Anchor Industries has used water bags, in addition to a variety of Straightpoint force measurement and rigging equipment, to complete load tests on a Liebherr crane on a vessel in Cape Town Harbour, South Africa.
Anchor Industries was contracted by Dormac Marine & Engineering to complete an overload test of the 500-tonne capacity Liebherr crane, the main crane on the deck of Van Oord's pipe laying vessel, DLB Stingray.
The testing involved a 550-tonne load being applied to the main hoist, a 55-tonne load test of the auxiliary hoist, as well as a 50-tonne calibration test of the main hoist after the 550-tonne overload test was complete.
Four 75-tonne capacity Radiolink plus wireless load cells and four 30-tonne capacity wireless low headroom links, all manufactured by Straightpoint and sourced from Anchor stock, provided data to handheld devices throughout the project. Another four 120-tonne load cells from a different manufacturer completed the force measurement fleet for the job.
For the main overload test, a dozen water bags were used in a three-tier cascading rig. At the top and middle were two 100-tonne and two 40-tonne bags, while one 30-tonne and three 20-tonne bags were combined at the bottom. Supporting rigging equipment was allocated to each lifting point.
