A GLOBAL supplier of lifting cushions is expanding distribution in Australia of products that respond to a Coroner’s call for high capacity airbags for mine safety and rescue.
The Pronal Group - represented throughout Australia by Air Springs Supply— offers stock and custom-fabricated lifting cushions powerful enough to lift and split rock and heavy plant equivalent in weight to locomotives and semi-trailers.
Used by civil industrial and military forces, Pronal’s newest cushions range from ultra-thin bags (just 20mm thick deflated) that can lift weights of more than 65 tonnes each, to powerful spreading cushions that can exert hundreds of tonnes of force to part plant and machinery components or split and lift rocks. These CLP and CLT ranges are complemented by low-pressure CPB Maxi-Lift cushions, which can be used on land and under water, offering greater strokes of up to 700mm (or 1400mm where a pair are employed).
“It is a tragedy that a death occurs to draw attention to the need for such cushions, but a very simple solution is available for industries that need it,” said Air Springs Supply General Manager Simon Agar. “These highly portable and extremely rugged reusable lifting cushions respond precisely to the call by the Queensland State Coroner in Rockhampton* for coal mining operations to equip each underground district with airbags of sufficient capacity to move or lift the heaviest equipment in the district,”
“Not only are the airbags suited to the conditions described by the Coroner’s inquest into the death of a miner crushed between a shuttle car and wall, but also they are suited to broad uses throughout the industrial and resources sector. They are a proven safety asset from the world respected Pronal elastomer engineering specialist organisation that achieved international prominence when it supplied the amazing lifting bags used to hoist artefacts from the ocean liner Titanic four kilometres beneath the Atlantic.”
Inflated by compressed air, versatile Pronal lifting cushions can delicately raise loads ranging from pipelines of all types to trucks, tracked vehicles, beams, bridge components, building components, machinery and resource development structures. They are already in industrial service in Australia delicately hoisting loads such as pipelines that might be damaged by alternative methods involving high point loads, or where their compact load-spreading qualities are useful on soft and irregular surfaces and in confined spaces.
Safety in lifting is enhanced by Pronal cushions incorporating the strength of Kevlar textile, the same super-tough fibre used in body armour, racing tyres and racing sails. Weight for weight, Kevlar is five times stronger than steel and superbly suited for repetitive work in harsh environments, including construction, energy, industrial, resources and civil engineering sites, says Agar.
Safety attributes of Pronal cushions include non-slip surfaces for maximum friction when stacking two cushions, cross-marking for easy centering under load and inscription of basic safety rules on the product. A broad range of accessories is available for different fields of application, including simplified inflation controller, control panel and air pressure relief valves. “The materials used are so tough and durable that they are used to recover immobilised aircraft, for example, or to lift tanks or split rocks in quarries.
“In addition to the standard models — such as the workhorse 920X920mm square cushion — a major advantage of Pronal cushions is that they can be custom-engineered to particular shapes and sizes to perform particular tasks.”
For more information please call Air Springs Supply’s on (02) 9807 4077or email sales@airsprings.com.au
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