Pipe slings are used for laying welded pipe into a trench, lifting pipe over rough surfaces during dragging, and driving a pipe bend during launching.
Pipe slings (rollie cradles) are an essential pipe handling accessory for steel, coated steel and plastic pipe handling applications. These can be used for laying welded pipe into a trench, lifting pipe over rough surfaces during dragging and driving a pipe bend during launching.
Richmond’s standard pipe sling configuration incorporates 16mm wire rope with the appropriate number and spacing of rollers to suit a single size pipe or a variety of sizes. For example, the less rollers incorporated into the sling the lower the cost, but the more rollers incorporated into the sling, the higher the versatility. Using 16mm wire rope creates a SWL (basket load) of 3000kg. Slings generally take no more than two working days to assemble and official load testing can be organised on request depending on customer’s preferences.
Special testing of sling with specific pipe size (organised on request)
055-100-600 with extra-long wire rope sling
Standard sling setup
055-150-1000 8 roller 16 mm wire rope assemblies
In July 2013, we were subcontracted by the Baulderstone Leighton Joint Venture to supply adjustable pipe rollers for the positioning and installation of dual 660 mm water main pipes on the underside of Ballan Road and Armstrong Road bridges in Wyndham Vale.
The installation of the water main pipes was a necessary part of the Victorian government’s Regional Rail Link development throughout western Melbourne – a landmark infrastructure project designed to remove major bottlenecks in Victoria’s rail network.
The development involved dedicated regional tracks built from West Werribee Junction to Deer Park, then along the existing rail corridor from Sunshine to Southern Cross Station, including new railway stations. Once completed, passengers on the Geelong, Bendigo and Ballarat lines were able to enjoy a streamlined journey through the metropolitan system.
Richmond was engaged under Supply Contract WPE-CON -0212 for the manufacture and supply of permanent and temporary bridge connections for the water mains. This included:
• permanent hanger sets • temporary roller hanger sets including temporary works design • temporary bridge pier rollers • temporary trench rollers for launching the pipes under the bridges.
Due to physical constraints involved in the construction of the project, pipe hangers could only be placed every 7M. The pipe involved in the project was mild steel cement-lined water pipe, which has a protective Sintakote coating. The rollers supplied by the Richmond team had to be height adjustable to allow for installation of permanent pipe supports. Dynamic loads were also generated during pipe launching.
The rollers we supplied for the water main pipe lengths were P/N 055 LAUNCHROLL rollers. These rollers were used to support the pipeline during welding, as well as to align the water pipe with the temporary pipe slings. The flexibility of the pipe rollers allowed for both the welding and alignment processes to be conducted without dismantling any part of the pipeline, or without compromising the integrity of the pipeline.
The Richmond engineering team designed and manufactured pipe sling rollers to successfully launch the water main pipes under the bridges and suspend them in position ready for the permanent brackets to be attached.
We met client milestones to ensure the project finished on time. This also included components that were permanent and had to be cast into the bridge deck slab prior to pipe launching. Rob Keens, Utilities Manager for the Baulderstone Leighton Joint Venture, said ‘Richmond Wheels & Castors was selected for the job because of its novel design solution which included chains, wire ropes and roller systems that were easy to install and adjust and provided a great solution for a difficult engineering task. Richmond supplied good quality workmanship on time which met the needs of the project. All persons onsite during the installation were extremely happy with the system and how easy and quick it was to install the water mains under the bridges.’
For unique projects, often a standard solution will not suffice. For example during a large water pipe replacement project in Essendon (Victoria) the old pipeline was removed and replaced. A 40m section of the project ran over a small river on top of a one hundred year-old old bridge. Due to the bridge design and access difficulties over the water way, using a crane to remove/replace pipe in sections was not an option. Additionally, because of the age of the bridge and the minimal engineering information to support the structural integrity, great care needed to be taken to minimise stress to the bridge. We developed a solution using custom chain slings with heavy duty turnbuckles for lifting/lowering the pipe from the bridge with integrated load cells so operators could quickly gauge the approximate load per sling. This ensured that each sling remained well with their load capacity and that load overall was shared across the bridge reducing stress and strain to the old structure. In a very difficult environment this solution allowed the removal and replacement of the pipe in a single 40m length without any powered lifting equipment.
Excited to talk pipe rollers?
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