Stack Full of Solutions

27 April 2018

In the construction industry, heavy lifting comes easily with the crawler crane. As the largest coast-to-coast provider of comprehensive lifting services in the United States, Maxim Crane frequently team up with other companies to find assist in finding the best solution for the job.

A few months back, another crane company reached out to one of our employees with a difficult task at hand to seek some advice. He agreed to meet with them on site to see if he could be any assistance to the finding a solution.

The task was moving a 23ft by 120ft tall exhaust stack that needed refurbished at the manifold area (base) of the stack. Their original plan was just to remove the upper 80ft section of the stack and lay it on its side.

There had to be a less invasive solution without laying the larger portion (140,000 lbs.) on its side. Sean Pence, Maxim’s VP of sales, came up with a plan to make the project run smoother. He asked if they would be able to bring in another crane so that the stack could remain upright during the repair.

Fortunately, the stack could stand up on its own. The only concern was the site conditions and the stability of the stack once the crane had removed the upper section and disconnected from it.

They put their heads together and came up with a solution to use three of Maxim’s 40′ x 8′ wide jumper bridges and create a supporting 24′ x 40′ steel support deck for the stack to rest and remain vertical on once brought down to grade. Around the stack, four 36,000 pound pieces of Maxim ballast were positioned 65′ away in each of the four directions and guide wires coming from the ballast to the top of stack for stability.

Their client ran all the applied and proofed numbers. They proceeded with this process using the Maxim jumper bridges and ballast. With a single primary hoist crane being a Manitowoc 2250 with 240′ main boom and Mike Thompson, the crane operator.

While on the mat runway, the crane performed the lifts and the guide wiring off the removed stack and went off as planned. Days later as the modifications to the base were done the stack was then placed back into its original position. Projected was completed and there was another satisfied customer. SOURCE: Maxim