With upcoming infrastructure projects in India like metro rail, road and railway expansions, industry modernisation etc, we see a growing market for Lorry Loaders.

Action Construction Equipment Limited (ACE), one of the leading material handling and construction equipment manufacturing companies in India, has recently introduced Lorry Loader Cranes in the Indian market.

A Lorry Loader is a crane mounted on a truck chassis. It can be mounted either between truck cabin and load body or at the end of the load body or rear end of the truck. Its primary application is to load or unload the truck. It can lift load from all sides adding to its flexibility. This machine is common equipment outside India but here currently the concept is new and has a niche market. “With upcoming infrastructure projects in India like metro rail, road and railway expansions, industry modernisation etc, we see a growing market for Lorry Loaders,” says Tarun Singhal, Product Manager, CED Marketing, Action Construction Equipment Ltd.

Knuckle boom cranes and its important features
Knuckle boom cranes, also called loader cranes, articulating cranes, and picker cranes, are an amazing piece of engineering technology. A knuckle boom crane appears similar to a standard crane, but the knuckle boom crane has two booms: A main boom and an outer boom. These two booms have a knuckle between them letting it fold back like a finger. This provides a compact size for storage and manoeuvring but at the same time it can extend further to reach loads at a distance. This kind of ‘fold and extend’ ability is missing in the traditional stiff boom cranes. Knuckle boom crane arms are much lighter than straight boom truck cranes, and they are designed to allow for more payloads to be carried on the back of the truck that it is mounted on. The majority of them is mounted behind the cab and leaves the entire bed of the truck empty. They may be small and easier to use in constricted spaces, but that does not make them any less effective because they can be easily used to lift heavy loads as well. The knuckle boom can even be outfitted with a winch for additional lifting options.

Singhal explains some of the major advantages of Lorry Loader Crane as follows:
Greater payload capacity
Considering all the different applications that it can be used for, Lorry Loader Crane is a light piece of equipment – light enough for the truck to carry its regular cargo and carry the weight of the mounted crane as well.

Attachments
The loader crane can be equipped with several different attachments at the end of the boom which add to its application versatility. Examples of these include man-carrying basket, pallet forks, brick or block grabs, wood log grabs clamshell bucket and more!

No travel limitations
It can be installed on a truck and that means that wherever your truck can fit, your truck crane will also fit because it becomes part of the truck.

Horizontal lifting
The articulating crane is excellent at lifting cargo horizontally, meaning that it can even be used in low clearance, tight spaces without causing any damage. Minimal space is needed to operate this crane.

Easier to load and unload
The articulating loader crane allows the operator to load or unload the cargo with much less vertical clearance required compared to a straight boom crane. The option to rear mount the crane gives the operator the ability to load or unload a trailer towed behind the truck.

Another advantage of using these Lorry Loader Cranes is that they reduce the number of machines required to load-transport-unload a job from one site to another as they are self-loading-transporting-unloading capable hence reducing the machine purchase, running and maintenance and labour cost to almost half.

Potential application areas
ACE manufactures these Lorry Loader Cranes in two configurations i.e. straight boom and knuckle boom. The range comprises of models from 6 tonne-metre capacity and going up to 20 tonne-metre capacity. The crane is rugged and light weight in design made of high tensile steel. These machines have very vast applications and can be used in defence sector, construction and infrastructure industry, brick, tiles, paver blocks handling industry, municipal services, pipe laying, timer handling or sawmills cos., electricity board – poles erection, railways, metro rail corporations etc.

A pioneer in Lorry Loader Cranes
In conclusion, Singhal informs, “At ACE, we developed Lorry Loader Cranes in our government approved R&D centre based at Faridabad and introduced fully indigenised range of these machines in our vast product portfolio. These machines are used widely on global basis for material handling jobs.”

ACE claims to be one of the pioneers to introduce these Lorry Loader Cranes in India which was well received by its huge clientele including companies like L&T, Tata projects, NCC, DMRC, Kalpataru Power and they have been supplying these machines to the Indian Army as well.

Tarun Singhal, Product Manager, CED Marketing, Action Construction Equipment Ltd

For more details visit, www.ace-cranes.com