Compared to investing in new equipment, crane heightening is a cost-effective way to extend your terminal’s capabilities and optimise performance by helping you get more from the assets you already have. We can heighten any brand of ship-to-shore (STS) or rubber-tyred gantry (RTG) crane as well as straddle carrier. For STS cranes we can also extend the boom reach at the same time to enable them to serve wider vessels. If you’re facing space restrictions, heightening your RTG cranes and straddle carriers allows you to expand your terminal vertically.
Our specialist jacking equipment can be used to jack up any size of crane safely, efficiently and cost-effectively. Our team of experts first check the crane’s strength and stability, which is influenced by wind loads, quay loading and load-spreading requirements.
Heightening your RTGs, rail-mounted gantry cranes or straddle carriers increases their container-stacking capacity, allowing you to expand your terminal vertically without taking up any more space. We’ve helped customers around the world extend their capacities in this way.
Heightening an STS crane involves inspecting and reinforcing the crane before jacking it up using our specialised tool. Our crane upgrade experts then install four new columns that extend the crane’s height. We can also extend your STS’s reach by lengthening the boom to allow it to serve wider vessels. We have performed close to 100 STS heightening and boom-extension upgrades for customers all around the world.
The average lifetime of an STS crane is around 25 years, depending on the number of moves it performs per year. Cranes that are heightened are typically between five and 15 years old. Extending the lifetime of your crane at the same time as increasing its height means you can spread your investment over a longer period. Kalmar experts can analyse your crane’s loadings to determine the weak points where cracks are likely to form, or where they may already exist. Reinforcing these areas can increase your crane’s lifetime by one to two million moves.
Get in touch with us to learn more about our services and how they can support your business.
