Racing Against Time, Barnhart Comes Up With a Solution

A ship building facility in Mobile, Alabama needed eight 226,000-pound overhead cranes (OHC) lifted and set at a site under construction. Each OHC was 140’ long. 

The original plan called for setting the cranes through the roof using a large crane.  However, delivery delays from the manufacturer in Italy meant the bay’s roofs had already been constructed by the time of the cranes’ arrival. Removing sections of the new roof would have added cost, schedule impact, and construction risk.

The customer asked Barnhart and other area crane providers to find another way. Barnhart was the only one who did.

Using a laser scan of the facility, Barnhart evaluated multiple approaches and ultimately engineered a plan built around the Barnhart Push-Up Unit (BPU) System as demonstrated in the video below.

Each overhead crane was transported from an offsite staging area to the bay on a trailer. Once inside, two cranes lifted the OHC to the top of the BPU stand.   

From there, 16 BPU barrels raised the 226,000-pound crane 70 feet inside the building. The field crew maintained strict tolerances throughout tower construction, then rotated the crane 90 degrees and carefully aligned it with the crane rail.

Once completed, the facility will use the new bays to produce submarine components for the U.S. Navy.