Barnhart was hired to move a 223,999-pound cold box from the Port of Tacoma in Washington to an industrial plant in Kent, Washington. The box was 117' long x 14' wide x 10'8'' high. It was hauled on 12 lines of an Eastrac trailer.
There were tight working conditions at the site. Rigging posed a challenge as well. The picking eyes were inset into the frame of the structure, which was originally designed for lifting the tower in the horizontal position. However, it was not ideal for tripping the tower into the vertical position. The engineering-designed boomerang links allowed Barnhart to tail the vessel from the original picking eyes without damaging the cold box or modifying it for traditional rigging methods.
A Demag CC2800 660-ton crawler crane was assembled on site and used as the head crane to upend the box. Barnhart’s Demag AC1600 650-ton all-terrain crane functioned as the tail crane.
The cold box was tailed to an angle position and the front legs were set on mats before the tail rigging was removed from the cold box. This tripping technique was used so that the customer could install decks onto the cold box prior to the lift. By installing the decks prior to lifting the cold box into the vertical position, Barnhart saved the customer both construction time and cost.