A patent pending movable deck lifter, TTS Intelligent Movable Deck Lifter (IMDL), developed by TTS aims to help reduce waste volumes onboard PCTC vessels (Pure Car Truck Carriers) due to new and improved technique.
A traditional deck lifter has a centered contact point, causing the corners of the panel to be deflected and an extra margin for lifting to be requires to get the panel on top of the support in stowed position.
The TTS IMDL has provides parallel lifting with four contact points, one in each corner by adjustable arms, therefore significantly reducing the extra margins needed due to hogging, construction tolerances or asymmetric hoistable decks at each deck level. The panel stays flat, waste volumes can be minimized and the weight of the panels can in some cases even be decreased.
With less waste volume, the ship design can be more flexible due to that either the cargo space can be increased or the total ship height can be reduced.
“The possible total height saving in the cargo hold varies from one ship design compared to another,” explained Tobias Ahlberg, Sales Manager at TTS Marine AB. “Using a typical PCTC vessel as an example the possible height reduction in cargo hold, when using the TTS IMDL, can be approximately 100mm for each liftable car deck level. In order to find the most optimized design using TTS IMDL lifter it is important that TTS is involved early in the design phase of the vessels cargo hold.”
Featuring a compact design for minimum storage, the TTS IMDL is a drivable vehicle operated via a remote control for easy handling and safety, positioning of vehicle, lifting and lowering of panels. A user friendly touch panel is located on the vehicle where all detailed settings and alarm management is available. The system is prepared to store the lifting arm positions of each panel which will make the handling both safe and easy. There are two different options available for selecting pre-saved settings for each panel, manual or automatic. When choosing the automatic option, the settings for each panel is automatically selected when the vehicle is in position.