When considering purchasing a crane for your business, it’s not always easy to know what crane type will best suit your requirements.
Of the many overhead crane types that exist, box girder cranes can offer superior lifting capacity making them especially suitable for heavy-duty applications.
However, just because a box girder crane is known for its limitless strength and durability, that doesn’t meet it’s a great fit for your needs, or even feasible to purchase due to the costs involved.
Metreel is a leading supplier of overhead and workstation cranes.
In this post, we will provide an overview of box girder cranes. Crucially, we’ll cover whether they are the right option or if another crane would offer a better match for your lifting requirements.
What Are Box Girder Cranes?
Box girder cranes get their name from their square-like girder which is typically engineered by welding steel plates together.
As an overhead bridge crane type, box girder cranes are unique due to their extremely high weight-to-span ratio. Compared to standard I-beam cranes, box girder cranes can withstand much heavier and more demanding lifting requirements.
When To Use A Box Girder Crane
Box girder cranes are necessary when your lifting operations are nothing short of mighty. In other words, there is a need to lift extremely heavy loads (i.e. above 100,000kg).
This may also include regular lifting as well as lifting in challenging environments such as construction sites, manufacturing plants, foundries, ports, shipyards and steel mills.
Due to the size and overall construction of box girder cranes, they are also used when there is a need for a crane with a long reach.
Overall, a box girder crane would be considered when other crane types can not meet the required lifting capacity or operational demands.
Box Girder Crane Advantages
- Can offer superior lifting capacities
- Excellent crane choice for facilities with wide bays
- Built to withstand continuous use in high stress environments
- The ‘box’ design of the girder is resistant to bending and deformation when handling heavy loads
- Fully customised to suit your lifting operations
Box Girder Crane Considerations
Box girder cranes are geared toward heavy-duty applications, with some cranes capable of lifting up to 150 tonnes (150,000kg). While that’s certainly impressive, the reality is that for lighter lifting requirements, a box girder crane would far exceed your needs. Ultimately, this would reduce its ROI.
Instead, lighter or infrequent lifting requirements would be better suited to an I-Beam monorail crane.
The extreme lifting capabilities of a box girder crane also mean that the floor of the facility the crane is housed in needs to be able to withstand the weight of the crane. This may require reinforcing the foundations if the facility isn’t purpose-built to house a box girder crane.
Other areas to consider are the high upfront cost of a box girder crane, especially as it will need to be custom-made to your exact specifications. Likewise, maintenance for a box girder crane can be complex and regular servicing is also essential.
Metreel – Discover Our Cranes For Your Material Handling Needs
It’s fair to say that while box girder cranes have an impressive lifting capacity, they can actually be excessive for what is actually required within your industrial operations.
Allow the crane experts at Metreel to provide a suitable alternative, especially if you are in search of a gantry crane, monorail crane or workstation crane.
To view our full range of products, please download the free Metreel brochure.
Or, if you have any questions about purchasing a Metreel crane, please give us a call on 0115 647 0422 or drop us a message and we’ll be in touch shortly.