344-20th Street
Suite 360
Oakland, CA, USA
94612-3593
1-510-832-5606
Fax 1-510-832-2436
www.liftech.net
Liftech Consultants Inc. is a consulting engineering firm, founded in 1964, with special expertise in the design of dockside container handling cranes and other complex structures. Our experience includes structural design for wharves and wharf structures, heavy lift structures, buildings, container yard structures, and container handling equipment. Our national and international clients include owners, engineers, operators, manufacturers, and riggers.
Liftech is at the forefront of marine terminal technology and strives to develop new technology that improves terminal productivity and safety. We design functional, environmentally sound structures for the most economical investment. The firm considers its service to be one of converting natural resources and labor into usable facilities that are a blend of aesthetic, structural, and functional considerations. We work well with owners, engineers, contractors, and architects.
We design cranes for most of the world’s container crane manufacturers. For Paceco, we developed the original standard A-frame, modified A-frame, and low profile quay cranes and RTG frame structures that have become the industry standard. For Mitsubishi, we provided structural design for the first machinery-on-trolley cranes to meet the strict stiffness criteria of the Port of Singapore Authority. For Paceco, Italimpianti, and Samsung, we designed the then largest low profile cranes, and we provided designs of the articulated booms for all of the quay cranes in Kaohsiung, Taiwan. Most recently, we designed the largest dockside crane with a 100 ton capacity and reviewed many of the manufactured DHT40 (dual hoist tandem 40) cranes.
We provide crane procurement assistance to port authorities, shipping lines, and terminal operators. Our services range from preparing specifications to complete assistance, including bid evaluation, design review, quality assurance audits, and fabrication inspection. We have written specifications to assist in the procurement of hundreds of container cranes, most of which are super post-Panamax.
We design modifications to increase the lift height, extend the outreach, increase the capacity, and change the rail gauge for cranes. For use in raising cranes, we designed jacking frames that dramatically decrease the out-of-service time for the crane. We are often called upon for consultations on damaged cranes. Our repair services include assessment of the situation, design of temporary securing, design of repairs, and oversight of the repair work. The repairs may involve replacing members, strengthening local areas, or heat straightening.
We help clients with crane equipment assessment and recommendations for purchase, modification, or repair. Our services include useful life assessment, reliability studies, condition surveys, and inspection programs. We are occasionally retained as an expert witness to assess crane accidents, evaluate repair estimates, and help resolve disputes.
Liftech has provided structural design and review of heavy lift and crane structures for nuclear power plants, offshore platforms, and other special structures since the 1970s. Our expertise also includes structural design and review of floating cranes of capacity up to 8000 t and a 1700 t floating crane that will be used to erect the major components of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge self-anchored suspension span. The barge mounted 1700 t floating crane was built by ZPMC in the PRC and is suitable for handling large bridge components.
Our building design experience ranges from one-story and two-story tilt-up concrete buildings with steel or wood framing to multi-story braced frame steel buildings. The buildings are generally for port, office, commercial, and industrial uses. In addition to traditional building structures, we also design miscellaneous structures in port terminals including canopies, light poles, guard booths, and truck wash facilities. During the design process, we review our designs with owners and contractors to ensure the most cost effective design.
We provide design and analysis services for wharf structures. Our design experience includes a new 550 ft wharf designed for Manson Construction for the Cemex West Sacramento Import Terminal, a 3000 ft wharf at Port of Oakland’s Berths 57-59, the upgrade of the Port of Oakland’s Berth 32, and the replacement of 500 ft of wharf at Port Authority of Guam after the 1993 earthquake. All of these wharves support dockside container cranes and container terminal traffic. We also evaluated all of the wharves at Port of Oakland and Virginia Port Authority to determine the crane rail capacities to aid the ports in their equipment decisions.
We provide engineering for the transportation of cranes, oil processing modules, offshore oil structure components, and miscellaneous equipment on barges and ships. Our services include checking the structures and the vessels for voyage forces, designing any required reinforcing for the structure and/or vessel, and designing the attachments to the vessel.
Our experience with seismic design includes evaluation and design of buildings, container cranes, and wharf structures. After the Loma Prieta earthquake, we provided structural evaluation of several buildings. After the Guam and Kobe earthquakes, we evaluated crane and wharf structures and helped owners determine the future of their structures. We provided the design reconstruction of a portion of the wharf at Guam. For new buildings and other structures, we provide innovative and economical earthquake-sound designs using the latest technology. We have performed seismic studies using finite element time history analysis to evaluate the performance of several container crane and unloader structures.
We developed a proprietary program for the design and analysis of quay cranes and other container handling equipment. The program is capable of designing or analyzing cranes for the various international standards. We have licensed the software to select crane manufacturers. For more information, please visit our Software section.
We take pride in providing all employees with the latest computer technology. We use structural software that was written by Liftech, as well as third party software such as Sap 2000, RAM, AutoCAD, Visio, Microsoft Office Suite, Microsoft Project, and Adobe InDesign.
Please also visit our Experience List section for more information.