Crane Hydraulic Systems
Companies and the military use cranes for various kinds of work. Cranes are essential for lifting and moving heavy materials, making them a must-have on many job sites. Part of using a crane effectively is ensuring it is as safe as possible for your crane operator and the customer's people and property surrounding the crane use site. Though many crane varieties exist, they can all benefit from a Bear-Loc® system, which immediately lock your equipment and load position in the event of hydraulic pressure loss.
Learn more about how you can keep your crane operators safe and the kind of cranes that can use a Bear-Loc® system. You may also want to find out more about Bear-Loc® features and how it sets itself apart from the competition.
Keeping Crane Operators Safe
When crane operators and other workers are around large equipment, companies need to take steps to keep them as safe as possible. Some of the most prevalent injuries resulting from crane use come from machine failure or operator error while moving the crane. For example, a worker may not notice a colleague or piece of equipment in their path, potentially crashing into either of them and resulting in severe injury or damage.
While companies can often fix crane operator error with more training and improved construction safety practices, an operator may not account for machine failure. Even those who never exceed their crane's load capacity may experience a sudden power loss or hydraulic system failure. These machine failures can end up causing a crane to lose its balance, swing its boom unexpectedly or drop its load.
Any workers, machinery or materials underneath a failing crane could get struck by a falling load or the crane itself, potentially resulting in injuries, damages and even fatalities. The loss of stability and balance can also cause the crane to tip over, which might injure your crane operator.
Protecting workers and others from injury or loss of life is paramount. Damaged equipment and property also can slow a project down and lead to production stoppages while a company waits for their team to recover or their mechanics to repair a machine. A company may also have significant liability exposure if their failing crane cause death, injury or property damage.
One of the best ways to keep crane operators safe and reduce the chance of equipment or property damage is to use a Bear-Loc®. These fail-safe devices come with infinite position locking, high system stiffness and no backlash.
A Bear-Loc® features a sleeve with an interference clamping lock system. Whenever there's a loss of hydraulic pressure whether accidentally or intentionally, the Bear-Loc® instantly locks the rod, no matter what phase the stroke is in. This ability prevents the boom from unpredictable swinging or moving during a power loss or hydraulic system failure.
Crane Markets and Types of Cranes With Hydraulic Systems
At York Precision Machining & Hydraulics LLC, we craft Bear-Loc® devices for various cranes to ensure our clients can complete a wide selection of tasks with an assurance of safety. Whether you need a crane for military or civilian applications, you are going to want it to be safe to operate and able to complete jobs without causing damage.
To help you meet this goal, we can provide a Bear-Loc® system for everything from mobile cranes and bulk handling cranes, to portal cranes and any crane that uses hydraulics as either a primary or supplementary power system. Learn more about some of the top types of military and commercial cranes, both mobile and stationary, we can outfit with Bear-Loc® devices.
Tower Cranes
Tower Cranes: Tower cranes are often stationary, fixed to the ground and are quite tall. You will usually find this type of construction crane building structures like skyscrapers. Hydraulic systems often help employ and set up these cranes.
Mobile Cranes
Mobile Cranes: Mobile cranes use hydraulics to power crane booms that telescope to pick loads. There are numerous categories of mobile cranes, such as all-terrain, boom truck, rough-terrain, truck-mounted, telescoping crawler and carry deck cranes.
Loader Cranes
Loader Cranes: A vehicle-mounted loader crane can lift heavy equipment, placing the load on a vehicle or trailer. The machine's design incorporates an articulated arm used for lifting. They are an installed piece of load-handling equipment for transportation vehicles that require the use of a crane to self-pick and position their cargo, do roadside or job site maintenance, or conduct material transfer.
Portal & Bulk Handing Cranes
Portal & Bulk Handling Cranes: Portal cranes are ideal for ship cargo loading and offloading, ship maintenance, ship construction and other marine port purposes. Bulk handling cranes move raw bulk materialssuch as corn, coal, wheat and gravel on and off ships.
Overhead Cranes
Overhead Cranes: Overhead cranes are a common sight in factories and other manufacturing environments, as they hang from sturdy beams and can handle heavy loads. The cranes usually sit on trolleys that can move in a single direction, with the tracks mounted on the assembly area's side.
Bear-Loc® can assist each of these cranes by providing them with excellent protection from the potentially dangerous effects of hydraulic system failure. You can find cranes using linear, jacking and rotary Bear-Loc® devices for reliable safety protection. You can also expect Bear-Loc® systems to be highly dependable, as they work automatically and last for a long time.
Military Crane Safety, Survivability, and Mission Accomplishment Solutions
Modern military cranes must be designed to conduct construction operations in tactical locations exposed to enemy small arms and fragmentation threats. The designs must provide safety to operators, ensure preservation for these high-cost equipment investments and ensure mission accomplishment for strategic purposes.They also handle ammunition, explosives and other hazardous materials. Due to the dangerous and critical work they do, a fail-safe design for these crane hydraulic systems is a necessity.
Because hydraulic systems are involved in lifting loads on military cranes, their design for survivability and safety must become part of military crane design. A hydraulic failure due to enemy small arms or fragmentation can cause a crane rollover due to unplanned movement of hydraulic cylinders while in load handling operations in tactical environments. This can result in death or injury to operators and cause equipment damage that can prevent mission accomplishment.
Commercial crane safety designs using only load-holding valves cannot provide the safety or load-holding protection necessary to meet modern military tactical environment requirements. For military cranes, an integrated rod lock plays an essential role in protecting operators and equipment. Armoring crane hydraulic systems is not a practical solution due to the weight increases would negatively effect crane performance. Tactical crane safety and survivability goes beyond simply armoring operator cabs, hydraulic system integrity must be maintained.
Military cranes can use Bear-Loc® systems to protect them from hydraulic failure and provide for this critical survivability and safety need. Any hydraulic component failure due to enemy small arms or fragmentation could result in cylinder movement and a crane collapse or rollover. A fail-safe rod lock would prevent unplanned cylinder movement and will keep main hydraulic and stabilizer cylinders in place if pressure is lost. A hydraulic cylinder could literally be penetrated and yet the load would not move even though all hydraulic fluid would be lost.
If you are a military crane operator or owner, insist your crane designs have a fail-safe rod lock integrated into your main hydraulic lift and stabilizer cylinders.
Crane Hydraulic Systems and Lock Safety Solutions
Bear-Loc® systems are the top lock safety solutions for crane hydraulic systems. These systems are the most durable and reliable fail-safe locking devices in the industry due to their many features. For instance, Bear-Loc®'s simple design, automatic locking and incredible versatility all combine to create a lock safety solution designed to give you a highly durable and top-performing fail-safe system.
Learn more about the many features of Bear-Loc® devices.
- Simple design: Bear-Loc®'s sophisticated engineering results in the most reliable locking device with the fewest components or moving parts. We designed them to optimize reliability and reduce the amount of preventive maintenance needed.
- Infinite-position and bidirectional locking: Part of what makes Bear-Loc® systems so popular is how the sleeve's locking section can engage the cylinder rod at any point in the stroke. This infinite-position locking expands performance capability. The lock can unlock and move either direction instantly.
- Automatic locking: Whether hydraulic pressure change or loss is planned or unplanned during operation, you can trust Bear-Loc® to lock automatically. The lock prevents movement and protects workers on your job site from injuries. As a result, you can think of it as the safest, most versatile option available for your hydraulic system locking and load-holding needs.
- Incredible versatility: You can find Bear-Loc® devices in several mounting styles and configurations, making it easy to find one matching the crane type and size your team relies on.
See Our Hydraulic Crane Frequently Asked Questions about Bear-Loc® Below
Get a Quote for Custom Design and Engineering
If you are ready to increase your cranes' safety, turn to York Precision Machining & Hydraulics, LLC. Operating since 1970, we are a U.S.-owned company strategically located near major East Coast transportation hubs. We are well-known for our precision machining and large parts capability.
Our team of knowledgeable experts, large facility and cutting-edge CNC machinery combine to ensure you can trust our ability to create reliable Bear-Loc® systems. Besides crafting Bear-Loc® to work perfectly in your cranes, we also offer custom precision machining and other tailor-made products, such as hydraulic actuators and accumulators.
We work with your equipment OEM for integration of Bear-Loc® into Hydraulic Systems. Contact us today to receive a free quote for custom design and engineering, or contact your OEM or Dealer and request a Bear-Loc® integration into your equipment.
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