Construction of a crane trestle has been completed at the smelting shop of Kola MMC (Nornickel Group). The engineering structure will optimize the operation of hoisting-and-conveying equipment in the shop and avoid scheduled downtime.
Three overhead cranes serving shop’s main aisle are intended for charging materials into converters and casting of converted matte. According to the technical specifications, each crane has to undergo three maintenance procedures each month and one routine repair each quarter. However, their arrangement is somewhat inconvenient. When the middle crane moves to the maintenance area, it blocks one of the two adjacent cranes, so that the latter cannot be used in the production processes.
Construction of the crane trestle is set to eliminate this issue. The trestle is an annex (height – 34 m, width – 30 m, length – 31.9 m) to the main building of the converter section. Its dimensions will make it possible to move all the three cranes to the maintenance area at once. Four hoists on the trestle, with 20 tons of capacity each, will be able to lift one crane above the railway in order to make way for the other two to come back from the maintenance area to the working space.
“In fact, it is for the first time that we will have a designated area for crane repairs,” said Oleg Klimuk, Chief Engineer at Kola MMC’s smelting shop. “We will thus boost efficiency of operation and maintenance of crane equipment, and eliminate the impact of scheduled crane maintenance on the shop’s day-to-day work.”
Installation of the trestle’s equipment is to kick off soon: in addition to the hoists, it will include four pivot cranes with a capacity of 3.2 tons and two monorail hoists with a capacity of 5 tons for crane repairs. Kola MMC allocates more than RUB 120 million to fund the project. (Nornickel/Ukrainian metal)