Goliath Cranes or Portal Cranes Explained. What is a goliath crane?
Goliath cranes, sometimes called portal cranes, are similar to overhead travelling cranes (OHTC’s), but instead of running on rails at high level, or on a free standing gantry structure, they run on rails on the floor. The main advantage of a goliath crane is the lack of supporting gantry rails can save money.
Access is often better as goliath cranes do not have crane columns every 6 meters, therefore saving money. Traditional OTC’s require free standing columns, markedly having more impact on the factory floor. Crane floor rails are sometimes seen as a disadvantage, especially as fork trucks cannot drive over them. In addition, people may occasionally trip on them. To prevent this, rails for goliath cranes are sometimes sunk into the floor. This involves digging out a small channel for the rail to be dropped into, and fastened down securely. We usually leave the top of the rail at floor level, to assist vehicle movement over the tracks and prevent the raised rail becoming a tripping hazard.
Sunken floor rails (image below) helps to reduce the trip hazard, and can be driven over with fork lift trucks. with sunken rail it can occasionally get contaminated with stones, leaves and other debris. Regular cleaning and inspections can avoid this as part of a maintenance program.
Are goliath cranes dangerous?
In addition, staff and visitors to site will need to be wary as a moving goliath crane can cause serious injury to pedestrians. Your site should have walkways and staff should wear high visibility clothing at the very least. Your safety officer will be able to advise you, and will know about restrictions you need to implement locally.
We purchased the goliath below and the client added a safety barrier, to prevent injury as people walked though a side door.
As well as goliath cranes some end users purchase semi goliath cranes from us. A semi goliath crane is where one side runs on the floor, as with traditional goliath’s, but the opposite side runs on either the building or on a free standing gantry structure.
10 things you need to know or ask about Goliath Cranes.
- What SWL, safe working load do you require?
- Do you require a goliath crane or a semi goliath crane?
- What span to you require, between the upright powered legs?
- How high to you need from hook to floor?
- Do you require the floor rails to sunk into the floor to avoid trip hazards?
- Do you require additional hand rails for personnel protection.
- Is it for indoor or outdoor use?
- Do you require a pendant control or a radio remote control to operate the crane?
- Voltage for electrically driven goliath’s in the UK is normally; 3 phase and earth, 415 volts.
- Will the power be fed from buzz bar or a cable reeling drum?
Please use our search facility to find out what goliath cranes we have in stock. We currently have a good stock of goliath cranes for sale.
Or contact us to speak to specialist crane adviser. Never be afraid to ask our experts to explain simply “what is a goliath crane?”
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