SECTOR · HEAVY INDUSTRY & PROCESS PLANT
Craneway openings, high-cycle internal bays and retrofits into plants that cannot stop. These are the openings where the constraint is rarely the span — it is the rail crossing the opening, the number of cycles a shift, and the fact that production carries on around the installation.
On most heavy-industry openings something already crosses the space the door wants: a live craneway, a service gantry, a duct run. Hook height is not negotiable, and neither is taking the rail out of service for a fortnight.
A 12 m internal bay door opened three hundred times a shift is a harder engineering problem than a 40 m hangar door opened twice a week. Drive selection, roller wear and seal life are set by the count, and the count is the question nobody asks at tender.
Foundry radiant heat on one side, abrasive dust on the guides, and a fork tip at 1.2 m looking for something to catch. The failure modes here are wear and impact, not wind.
Retrofit into a building in production, working around shift patterns, hot work permits and a floor that cannot be closed off. The programme is written around the plant, not the other way round.
Where the rail crosses the opening, a fold-up leaf stacks below it and the vertical lift leaf is ruled out — hook height unchanged, no rail modification. Headroom required 0.9 m.
Fold-up and vertical lift compared →Drive, rollers and seal specified against the cycles you actually run. Standard drive rated to 00 cycles/day, heavy-duty drive above that. We ask for the count before we quote a class.
Controls and drive →Guide profiles bolted through to the column so an impact loads the structure rather than tearing the rail off the wall, and a leaf panel that can be replaced individually instead of as a whole curtain.
How the mechanism works →Survey, calculation of the reactions on the existing frame, and an installation sequence written to your shift pattern. Our own crews, so permits and method statements come from one company.
Talk to an engineer →Aviation, defence and shipyards each have their own page because each has its own acceptance regime. Everything else industrial lands here — not because it matters less, but because the argument is the same argument: clearance, cycles and wear. If your building is on this list, the specification conversation starts in the same place.
Radiant heat, scale dust, craneway openings.
Zoned areas, ventilation balance, wash-down.
Abrasive dust and near-continuous traffic.
High cycle counts and forklift impact.
Internal partition doors, temperature separation.
Plant rooms and maintenance bays behind the apron.
Three hundred cycles a shift is the specification. The span is just a dimension.
Delivered openings →Tell us the cycles per shift before the span. The count decides the drive, the roller specification and the seal material; on a high-count door it also decides whether a fold-up or a vertical lift leaf will still be in service in ten years. Standard drive rated to 00 cycles/day.
The fold-up leaf stacks in 0.9 m above the lintel, so the rail keeps its hook height and never comes out of service. Reactions on the existing frame are issued as a calculation note with the offer.
Fabric, guide material and seal are selected for the environment rather than the catalogue: radiant heat on a foundry bay, abrasive dust on aggregates, wash-down in food and chemical plant. Temperature range to be confirmed per fabric.
A fork tip through a panel is a repair, not a replacement: individual panels can be changed on site, and guides are bolted through to the column so an impact is taken by the structure. Spares held per contract.
The projects below are illustrative of the type of work we do, not released references. Every span, height and class is dotted because none of them is confirmed yet — real references, named or anonymised, replace them once the client releases them.
CENTRAL EUROPE
Specified on cycle count rather than span: three-shift operation with the leaf cycling through the working day, and a seal detailed for wash-down.
Request the reference sheet →
GERMANY
Fold-up leaf beneath a live crane rail: 0.9 m headroom, no loss of hook height, no rail modification and no shutdown. Photographed at the head after installation — the plant floor was in production.
Request the reference sheet →Retrofit into an existing external elevation with the building in production throughout. Site photography requested from the client.
Request the reference sheet →Sector is already set to heavy industry. Send the opening, the cycles per shift and anything crossing the opening, and we come back with a leaf type, a drive and a price — usually within three working days.
On a retrofit we survey before we quote. Reactions on your existing frame are issued as a calculation note, so your structural engineer can check them.
