Cordless Machines And Safer Technologies Will Save Lives

Manual methods are being replaced by new ways of exerting maximum force with minimal risk to workers, says Enerpac’s Tony Cooper.

Sometimes it takes a major problem to produce a major advance. This is the case for safety in the workplace -- recent worldwide events have forced a rethink of the old ways of doing things. During the Covid pandemic we have all been forced to look at new ways of performing old tasks because we couldn’t have too many people close together. This resulted in a spurt in the relevance of digital technologies such as the EVO synchronous lifting technology. Technologies that enable us to do a better job, while removed from danger, are getting a real boost. At the same time, the automotive transformation from fossil fuels to electric power has taken giant strides. Over the last decade a surge in lithium-ion battery production has led to an 85 percent decline in prices, making electric vehicles and energy storage commercially viable for the first time in history. Battery-based safety tools have benefitted immensely. Once not regarded as a serious heavy-duty tool, they are now coming into their own as a mainstream safety product, benefitting both the environment and their users.

The huge surge in new infrastructure development in Australasia, coupled with a rising wave of decommissioning and conversion of obsolete fossil fuel plant, present an array of safety challenges and opportunities in the years ahead.

Conscious of their Duty of Care and the consequences of injuries and shutdowns, companies are embracing a whole new generation of powerful, portable and ergonomic tools that lighten the load and increase the efficiency of operations such and bolting and unbolting, cutting, bending, lifting and forming.

Hydraulic battery technology, for example, has reached a point where cordless alternatives such as hydraulic pumps offer the same performance as their corded counterparts, with a sufficient fuel reservoir to last whole shifts without the need to replace or recharge the battery.

An additional bonus is that they can be used in locations where there’s limited or no access to power such as remote sites, inaccessible machinery or high places, and where dragging around a cord around is not an option.

For a myriad of applications, a corded tool is totally safe, and the ideal solution where the cords and power input are completely out of the way. Enerpac, for example, is one of the world’s leading hydraulic organisations with a range of thousands of mains-connected tools and a commitment to our Global Goal Zero safety training policy.

Both corded and cordless hydraulic tools available now are pursuing a path towards lighter weight and far better ergonomics and safety than ever before.

This is particularly the case where the hydraulic technology is high-pressure (700 bar, 10,000 psi) which concentrates the greatest amount of force into the most compact and therefore easily handled tools.

And for all clean, green electric tools – corded and cordless – increased safety is critical because of the huge personal and national costs of workplace accidents.

A worker is killed at work nearly every second day in Australia, but these tragic deaths these figures represent the tip of an accident iceberg. According to Safe Work Australia, work-related injuries cost the Australian economy around $60 billion every year.

Workplace injuries impose a terrific physical and mental toll on victims and their families. So too do injuries prove to be a massive drain on business’ costs and productivity, with stoppages and remediation always involving downtime and punishing the uptime and efficiencies industries are seeking in these competitive times.

This article focuses on agriculture, transport, mining, construction, energy and manufacturing, which make up the top six hazardous categories.

The most common injuries across all industries, according to Safe Work Australia, include sprains and strains of joints and muscles, which comprise 41.8 percent of all incidents. These are most often caused by poor manual handling practices and improper OHS handling, which can lead to slip and trip accidents, among others.

Workers who are required to bend and move their bodies to lift, carry or push heavy items are at serious risk of straining their muscles.

Carrying out bolting operations at height runs the risks of slip and fall accidents and the danger to those working beneath of dropped objects. Falls from height or being hit with moving or falling objects are among the major causes of death among the thousands of serious injuries to workers on construction and infrastructure projects.

Such hazards will also become a greater challenge in the energy industry as wind towers become more and more prevalent. Lightweight ergonomic cordless tools – properly secured, with proper training – help provide a solution by which workers can safely exert precise force on repetitive tasks such as bolting.

Such lightweight tools will also provide a solution to fatigue when working in confined spaces, where there is limited room to manoeuvre around the workpiece and where manual labour can be hot and rapidly fatiguing.

Cranes and conveyors

Another area where cordless tools are making safety inroads is in servicing of cranes and conveyors.

Leading mining equipment OEM Techmine Solutions has developed an innovative solution to a common mining problem – efficiently lifting thousands of metres of conveyor belts for maintenance.

Techmine developed a new lightweight hydraulic belt lifter that utilises Enerpac’s XC-Series Cordless Portable Hydraulic Pump to safely and reliably provide the hydraulic pressure (700 bar, 10,000 PSI) required to lift belt sections up to 2,000kgs.

“The new belt lifter effortlessly raises the belt in 20 to 25 seconds without requiring complex input from the user. An 1800mm belt lifter, comprised of three main parts, weighs only 29.5 kilograms once assembled. The main 13.7 kilogram lifting beam is ergonomic and easily portable,” said Mr Justen Wright, Principal Engineer, Techmine, and inventor of the new technology.

Safety Training

An essential component of using such powerful heavy lifting technology is having the appropriate safety training to ensure Standards compliance and the safety of everyone involved.

Companies are time-poor so Enerpac brings safety to the site.

Enerpac’s Goal Zero on-site safety training is designed to optimise the uptime and performance of widely used tools while spotlighting workplace hazards and preventable accidents.

These are practical, downto-earth safety training development courses designed to deliver immediate benefits from course leaders who combine local expertise with global knowledge and standards. The key outcomes on which they focus are reduced accidents and downtime.

Elements of the on-site courses are tailored to the needs of individual sites and workshops, including mine, oil and gas, energy generation, primary processing (including paper, sugar, food and beverage and agribusiness) bulk handling, construction, infrastructure (inc ports and defence establishments) transport (inc rail, road and aviation) and energy generation and public water and local authority service utility organisations. 

They include: 

• Tool inspections and correct workplace usage guidance 
• Maintenance and storage practices that optimise safety and uptime 
• Spotlighting potentially dangerous practices, with case studies
• Extending tool life and productivity
• Safety guidelines for general situations and for particular industries
• Attendance certificates

Heavy lifting

Heavy lifting always presents challenges, both during the process – and sometimes further down the line, when unbalanced lifting can permanently compromise the long-term safety and stability of the structure being created.

This is another area where technology is overtaking old methods, whether the lift involves, say, a single turbine or transformer, or an entire oil production platform, which must be precisely assembled, lifted, shifted and loaded so it can withstand the long-term efforts of exposure to the elements at sea.

For example, Enerpac uses high-efficiency, high-safety synchronous lifting technology, where required, to allow multiple cylinders to be used simultaneously to lift structures within an average accuracy between the cylinders of a millimetre or less. They can also weigh and balance the load, during lifting and shifting, to ensure safety and longevity of the structure.

One of the biggest jobs using this technology in recent years was where Malaysia Marine and Heavy Engineering (MMHE) used 352 compact, high-pressure 300-tonne cylinders to lift and skid the 43,000-tonne Gumusut-Kakap floating oil production system onto a vessel waiting in the Straits of Johor.

While the technology employed is capable of lifting and shifting far greater weights than the Gumusut-Kakap (it can lift more than the equivalent of the 52,000-tonne weight of the steel in the Sydney Harbour Bridge, for example, or reposition a tunnel boring machine) it was the system’s ability to sense and control any deflection of the pontoons and main superstructure structure that won it plaudits for protecting structural integrity throughout the lift-weigh-shift-andlaunch process.

The same synchronous lifting technology enabled contractor partners SKF and Sandvik to achieve outstanding precision, safety and avoidance of downtime during a 220-ton lift to facilitate slew bearing replacement on a GrainCorp ship loader at the Gladstone Port Terminal in Queensland.

The EVO synchronous lifting system – using PLC control to manage four heavy duty CLRG cylinders simultaneously – was used to lift the upper structure of the ship loader over 300mm, allowing the old bearing to be taken out and a new one put in.

When taking the slew bearing out of the Port of Gladstone loader, the upper structure needed to be lifted straight up with absolute precision. The EVO system managed to stay within an average accuracy between the cylinders of 0.54 mm, which is incredibly accurate for a lift like this.

Using the EVO synchronous lifting system allows companies like SKF and Sandvik to lift all sides of the bearing evenly and precisely from a central control point. By digitally monitoring and controlling lifting operations, they can enhance safety and precision compared with manual lifting operations.

Farewell to flogging hammers

One of my final examples of practical, shop floor enterprise and innovation (which is often where good safety practice comes into effect) comes from an enterprising Queensland contracting company.

Gibson Instrumentation Services (GIS) developed a safer, faster and more cost-efficient way to assemble heavy ABON coal feeder chain links by replacing strenuous manual labour with compact and powerful hydraulic power.

The compact and powerful 700 bar high-pressure hydraulic equipment is used to assemble the chain links to form ABON conveyors of a type produced by FLSmidth Group for extensive use in the mining and energy, coal, cement and aggregate industries.

GIS eliminated the need to use flogging tools during on-site assembly by introducing into their workshop a neatly portable combination comprising our C-clamp, 10-ton cylinder and lightweight PU series Electric Economy Pump with pendant control and pressure gauge for safety.

The new combination is used in ABON OEM work in the workshop to precisely assemble chain lengths often weighing more than a ton, typically achieving tasks in one day that previously might have taken several. The Enerpac combination weighs less than half the 37kg of the previous customised tool that took two people to lift safely and required a crane for positioning.

The new tool is also light enough to be taken onsite for maintenance tasks, where it also increases the safety of the job and cuts the time taken to do it.

Situations where portable and cordless tools and new technologies can replace manual input with time-saving and safer alternatives

1. Slip and fall accidents, which are still too common to all sectors
2. Repetitive strain injuries, in all industries, particularly where old equipment is manual and bulky
3. Maintenance in confined spaces – especially mining energy and construction, but also inside heavy machinery (mobile and static)
4. Heavy lifting
5. Emergency repairs in the field, to prevent downtime
6. Rescue work, where powerful tools are needed immediately
7. Airborne and remote sites work, where tools must be light and self-sufficient
8. Sites where there is heavy wheeled traffic, such as forklifts in a factory or vehicles in a distribution centre
9. Working at heights, particularly construction, but in plenty of other situations also, including mining loader booms, cranes and conveyors.

Tony Cooper is Product Engineer and AsiaPacific Marketing Manager, Enerpac.

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