Assessment of different lifting devices for the shipping bays for DONES main building

Abstract

During the installation and maintenance phase of IFMIF-DONES (International Fusion Materials Irradiation Facility-DEMO Oriented Neutron Source), several components need to be transported vertically between different floors inside the DONES main building. There are totally four shipping bays inside the main building, two of which are mainly responsible for components transportation. The lifting devices in the shipping bays should be carefully selected based on the requirements of components, including their sizes, weights, shapes, activation status, shielding requirements, human escorts and transportation routes. Considering these requirements and the building information, five possible lifting devices are proposed, namely parallel ropes lift, heavy load storage and retrieval machine, rack and pinion lift, upside-down scissor lift as well as rigid chain lift. The optioneering method is applied to assess the different lifting devices with the help of weighted criteria. As a result, parallel ropes lift, heavy load storage and retrieval machine and rigid chain lift are assessed as the most appropriate lifting devices in the shipping bays for DONES main building. A market survey is carried out on these three kinds of lifting devices. At the end of this paper, the principle sketches of the rigid chain lift inside the shipping bay are shown including the transport platform.