Using the new technique, Netherlance is able to burn out any part of a machine without damage to the overall construction. Doing so takes minutes rather than days.
The maintenance of landside pendlelegs and other moving pins and axles in the corrosive coastal environment of ports can consume a significant part of total maintenance costs. When pins become ‘stocked’ or seized a crane may be out of operation for days and conventional techniques for freeing them may not be successful.
Netherlance specialises in the use of thermal lances (a well known tool in the demolition industry) for the removal of hinge- or wheel-axles on cranes, hatch covers on ships, winches, blocks and cylinders, when corrosion or other damage means that they cannot be dismantled with hydraulic equipment.
The company says that in the last five years the use of its thermal lances for maintenance and construction purpose has increased by around 50%. One recent project saw the company at work at the ECT Delta Terminal in Rotterdam where modifications to 27 container cranes were necessary to handle the largest containerships in the world.
