Transporting a 24 Ton Press Tool

It's a 24 ton press - but what is your best estimate of its weight?

Is it a 7 ton lifting capacity forklift or a forklift that weighs 7 tons? I wonder if the M16 bolts are the least of your worries. How are you planning to connect the load so that the counterbalance would fall off?

Having moved machinery and helped move machinery for over 12 years I can say that knowing the breaking point of an M16 (or 4) computed in a controlled test will not be a fair test in your case. There always seems to be a little backlash, especially when slopes are involved. Why is pulling the machine the only option?

Professional machine movers use many small dollies to move machine around, they are low profile and fit very nicely under most machines. They lessen the drag quite a bit!

The slope is going to be the problem. If your forklift doesn't have a low gear it may struggle and may not pull at all.

48000 lbs is roughly the weight of a lightly loaded semi tractor trailer. Most large wrecker services have a wrecker truck for pulling semis out of ditches and so forth with powerful winches that would fairly sniff at 24 ton.

Might be cheaper than a repair on the forklift.

I hope this gets some gears churning! But if not, We need to know if you're talking about the sheer strength of the M16 bolt and if so what grade? If you're talking about the thread strength, we need to know the grade bolt and if it's AN (probably not, they have rolled threads) or not.

If you are wanting to pull a press weighing 24 tonnes around a workshop on a slope of 6% the force transfered to the hitch on the counter weight will be:

Force to overcome rolling resistance:

0.015(Typical rolling resitance coefficient may need to adjust) x 24000(KG) x 9.81(gravity) = 3531.6N

Force to overcome gravity up hill:

0.06(% grade) x 24000 x 9.81 = 14126.4N

Assuming you may be required to start from a stopped position on a slope:

Total = 17658N = 17.7KN (0.0177MN) (For towing cables or bar 2Tonnes)

Yield Strength of a Steel bolt can be as low as 240MPa (or upwards of 1100MPa)

One bolt will be subjected to the Stress Sigma (MPa) = F (Mega Newtons) /CSA (Msq) = 88.5MPa

Therefore one bolt will hold at least 2.7 Times this. But Note this assumes a constant speed and smooth towing any adjustments in direction and acceleration will increase the forces exerted, but as long as they are performed slowly the increase will be small.

All of this information can be found on the Net so please check it out youself before attempting; 24 Tonnes is big load.

You will have no problem pulling with forklifter, but all depends on size of your trolly wheels, area of trolly etc, just keep centeral wheel diameter litle bit bigger say 10-20mm

Sorry to go on about it, but for instance, I believe a 24 ton Schuler hydraulic transfer moulding press weights about 9,000 lb (12,000 lb incl. power unit & control panel). (The "lb" may be "kg" - I'm not sure (the spec. sheet I've seen used the "#" symbol) - but it's still nowhere near 24 tons).

Do you have a 24 ton press or a press weighing 24 tons?

Hello John, Sorry for replying sooner but with the kids on holidays i have not had time, I want to move a 24 ton tool around to the tool roon for a weekly PPM. we have a dolly which will accomodate the tool but, we have to take the tool all outside the factory to get to the tool room, this includes the slight incline as we leave the factory, this is wear I see the possible risk. I have found an alternative route using our die loader which is rated at 15 Tons, so I will split the tools and bring each half around to the tool room, the issue here is the bottom tool is fine as it sits flat, but the top half of the tool will need a nest making for it to sit securely would a simple RSJ construction surfice for a maximum weight of 12 tons?

JohnJo, Thanks for clarifying things. I'm sorry, but after all that going on, I'm not really the bloke to ask.

At least you've analysed & broken down your problem into more manageable chunks. If you're still stuck, I suggest you re-present the 'sticky' bit (in a new post to MechEng), expressed as clearly as you can.

This is an interesting one. Assuming you are doing the obvious thing which is putting a press weighing 24 tons on a trolley and towing it to a new location with a forklift whose lifting capacity is 7 tons. The trolley to be attached to the towing point of the forklift that is part of the counterweight.

As described your 16mm bolts should cope with the situation quite adequately providing you don't get a big heap of slack in the chain and take a bang at it to get the trolley over the speed hump no one mentioned!

Look at this way, the manufacturer of the forklift considered them adequate to hold the counterweight on the machine through hell and high water, including apprentices driving it, whereas you are gently sneaking a rolling load along.

I'd be interested to hear others on this but my gut feeling is that I doubt you could break a single, good quality, correctly installed 16mm bolt with the pulling force of a 7 ton forklift. Possibly exceed it's safe working load, but break it? Anyone got a forklift and some spare time?