Applications of Overhead Cranes

There are many different varieties of cranes available in the market. But out of all those, the Overhead crane is the one that is used in most of the industries for many purposes. It is basically comprises of parallel runways with a traveling bridge spanning the gap. It has ahoist, the lifting componentwhich travels along the bridge. If the bridge is rigidly supported on two or more legs running on a fixed rail at ground level.

The most common application of this mechanical assistant is in the steel industry. At every step of the manufacturing process, until it leaves a factory as a finished product, steel is handled by it. Raw materials are poured into a furnace by crane, hot metal is stored for cooling by an overhead crane, the finished coils are lifted and loaded onto trucks and trains by overhead crane, and the fabricator or stamper uses giant to handle the steel in his factory. The automobile industry uses them for handling of raw materials. Smaller workstation cranes handle lighter loads in a work-area, such as CNC mill or saw.

Almost all paper mills use them for regular maintenance requiring removal of heavy press rolls and other equipment. They are used in the initial construction of paper machines because they facilitate installation of the heavy cast iron paper drying drums and other massive equipment, some weighing as much as 70 tons.

In many instances the cost of a bridge crane can be largely offset with savings from not renting mobile cranes in the construction of a facility that uses a lot of heavy process equipment. The above described are some of the important uses of overhead cranes.