Orange-based lifting and rigging equipment company Unilift takes pride in offering durable, sustainable, quality products to the crane industry. General Manager Ben Scott and brother Caleb Scott discuss the company’s position as the exclusive distributor of Diepa rope and Extreema slings, and Unilift’s attitude to reducing waste in the industry.
Cranes are large investments.
Setting aside spiralling worldwide crane prices, machine acquisition at any stage of a company’s life can range from hundreds of thousands of dollars to well into the millions. This naturally takes up the main budget of crane hire companies and larger scale construction, mining or port businesses.
But the machine itself is not the only component responsible for completing safe and successful lifts; high-quality rigging must go together with high-quality machinery.
After crane purchase, one of the largest long-term investments a business will make in its machines are the ropes that are installed. Potentially costing tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars, these ropes need to be designed to provide many years of flawless service. Unilift, as the sole distributor for Diepa Special Wire Ropes, provides exactly that.
The stalwart rope for some of Germany’s biggest crane manufacturers, Diepa’s rotation-resistant B-series winch ropes possess “excellent” anti-spin characteristics, with a fully encapsulated compacted structure and rugged outer strands. Manufactured to a tighter nominal tolerance of +3.5 per cent, installing these ropes also reduces initial wear on sheaves and drum while the rope is bedding in.
Damage in this area is to be avoided at all costs, as premature wear of drum or sheaves is very expensive to rectify, as many crane owners would know.
Above and beyond Diepa’s reputation for precision rope design, the highest quality wire and various corrosion-resistant coatings, it is its manufacturing technology that really sets Diepa apart from the crowd. A patented manufacturing process—unique to Diepa—provides not only highly accurate strand formation but exceptional lubricant impregnation right to the rope’s core.
“This is one of the key factors behind the exceptional life of Diepa crane ropes” says Caleb Scott, from Unilift’s wire rope division. “During testing and certification, we often break-down and test-to-destruction a whole range of ropes from all the big manufacturers. What many customers don’t realise is that we see lots of ropes that display very few visible signs of damage to the outer strands, but failure can still occur without warning from extensive, invisible issues within the core. Sometimes the lubricant and even the plastic core sheath has been squeezed out through the outer strands, leaving the core to corrode and break. In a crane setting, this can be disastrous.”
“But Diepa ropes are manufactured in such a way to allow visual wear to occur on the outer layers (where they can be seen upon inspection) well and truly before any extensive wear can impact upon the core.”
“Part of the way they manage to achieve this is by maintaining a high level of internal lubrication even after many years of hard use. When in use, a rope’s inner strands are constantly being stretched, compressed, twisted and flexed – all at the same time. If these strands are well protected by internal lubrication from both friction and corrosion, they’re far more likely to last the distance. Only Diepa has really managed to offer this high level of internal protection for the long haul through great rope design and precision manufacture.”
Diepa ropes come in a range of sizes and alternative rope designs that can be tailored to suit specialised usage. Their X-series and H-series offer ideal luffing ropes with their parallel lay option and superior plasticated core.
“As you’d expect, it’s the parallel lay design that gives these ropes their greater flexibility for luffing use,” says Caleb, “but it’s the addition of the plasticated inner-sheath that allows Diepa to achieve the same great service life on a more flexible rope. If this plastic sheath wasn’t up to the task, cracks would very quickly form and moisture—then corrosion—could find its way inside, often tracking up and down the core leading to strand breakage and eventually failure. But it’s very rare to see this happen with a Diepa rope.”
Further to its exclusive distribution of Diepa’s wire ropes, Unlift is also in the unique position of being the sole distributor of Extreema soft slings in the Australian heavy-lifting industry. As the world pushes toward renewable energy, projects such as wind farms—both onshore and offshore—are gaining further investment. With that investment comes the need for lifting products and construction equipment tailored to the demands of wind turbines themselves.
“Wind components are both huge and fragile, which requires some very careful planning and specialist equipment,” says Ben Scott, Unilift’s General Manager. “We were privileged to play a part in a recent Wind Energy conference and were reminded again just how far heavy-lift technology has come in the last decade to meet the needs of the growing renewables sector, and just how important it will be for crane companies to be ahead of the curve when it comes to these types of lifts.”
According to the Unilift team, this is where Extreema’s soft slings thrive. As Ben points out, these products were developed in the Netherlands and are distributed across Europe, an area with significant wind energy investment that has seen Extreema’s reputation boom. As part of a significant shift in the lifting and rigging industry, these soft slings weigh less, are immensely strong, are quieter and softer and as a result cause much less damage to the products being lifted.
The scope for Extreema slings is just as large as the projects they excel in, featuring lifting capacities ranging from 0.5 tonnes through to 8000 tonnes, with some of the slings extending up to 80 metres long. Additionally, it is not just the wind energy industry where these slings thrive: capable of floating on—and being repellent to—water, they are suitable for a range of port and offshore lifting practices. And thanks to its new ‘Inferno’ range, Extreema now also offers a heat resistant range that maintains its working load limit in temperatures up to 200 degrees Celsius, making them a perfect option for many factory operations as well.
With the industry-wide push towards long-term sustainability, Extreema slings are part of Unilift’s own driving motivation to offer long-term, sustainable products to the lifting industry.
Not only is genuine Dyneema (and the newer Bio-based Dyneema) exceptionally strong and hard-wearing, but the wide range of protection options available—from velcro attached edge or pinch-point protection to full double- or even triple-layer Dyneema or Cordura sleeves—allow for exceptional longevity.
“It’s frustrating to still wander past the ‘corner of the yard’ in some businesses where piles of used soft slings curl up to rot,” says Ben. “If treated well by the end user, our Extreema slings will give a company many years of excellent service and can be repaired upon damage. Simultaneously, this saves money and benefits the environment.”
Speak to anyone on the team, and they will all tell you that supplying high-quality equipment is only part of the job at Unilift.
With substantial fabrication and machining resources in its Orange facility, Unilift also provides servicing and repair for hook and sheave blocks as well as other engineered lifting products. These big-ticket items can be a lifetime investment, so ‘care and repair’ is a mantra encouraged by Unilift.
Part of Unilift’s fabrication and machining resources is its 1000-tonne test-bed. One of the largest in Australia, this test-bed allows for the destruction testing of large diameter ropes and load testing of all hardware, chains, slings, and spreader systems, whether manufactured by Unilift or not. Aligning with the company’s ethos of providing smarter, safer and sustainable solutions, Unilift’s maintenance, repair and testing work underlines its commitment to ensuring the certainty and safety of its products.
Outside of slings and ropes, Unilift also holds an inventory of fixed, telescopic and modular spreader beams for hire (as well as all related slings and hardware to suit).
“Hire is a steadily growing part of our work here” says Ben. “To be able to offer specialised rigging to a range of companies for a range of applications is very rewarding. In these times of rising prices when lifts are getting more technical and storage space for many businesses is at a premium, some time investing in large capacity resources might be overkill for a ‘one-off’ job.”
Unilift also designs, engineers and manufactures many custom lifting assemblies to suit the needs of various lifts and customers. While its range of smaller telescopic spreaders is gaining in popularity—spanning a 5-30-tonne capacity and possessing 2.0-3.5-metre or 3.5-6.0-metre spread options—its modular spreaders are an entity all of their own. With weight classes spanning from 12-tonne through to a mammoth 3000-tonne capacity, Unilift’s 1-50-metre spreaders are highly applicable for complex, heavy lifts on rail, bridge, and offshore projects.
Less exotic but much more frequently utilised are Unilift’s triangle, delta, and drop-link plates. Lighter than many competitors’ products due to their platform-style design, these plates are also highly compatible with Unilift’s range of lifting and spreader beams, manufactured wire rope slings and grommets and its extensive range of shackles, fittings and other hardware.
“At Unilift, our desire is to be the Australian go-to for complete heavy-lift solutions – and not just heavy-lift components,” says Ben. “There’s been a steadily growing reliance upon overseas manufacture, but as we’ve seen in recent years that can very quickly be disrupted by world events.
“At Unilift we want to play our part in ensuring the success of the heavy-lift sector by continuing to offer these specialised products and services at a local level.”
READ MORE:
- Synthetic, soft, sustainable lifting and rigging equipment.
- Sustainability, futurism, and certifications – LiftEx2023.