Operational Excellence Starts with Informed Decisions
Having the right tool for the job makes all the difference. We’ve engineered the OmniLift™ line of shiplifts to deliver superior performance, safety, and durability. This side-by-side comparison highlights how our product outperforms the competition—offering greater long-term value, seamless integration, and the resilience to excel in even the harshest conditions. See what information has guided leaders to the only vessel sustainment solution that rises to every challenge.
Bardex Chain Shiplift
Wire Rope
Facility Space
- Small footprint, requiring only one-third the space of a winch
- Scalable technology provides the same lifting capacity with fewer lift stations, as well as lower up-front and maintenance costs throughout the life of the system
- Narrower pier widths and fewer piles reduce civil costs
- Takes up 66% more space than a chain lift
- Larger pier widths and more piles than with chain
Usability
- Simple components, consisting of a single lift cylinder and two small latch actuators controlled by an off-the-shelf control valve
- Straight-line lifting: No highly loaded winch drums or sheaves and no bending loaded lift element, as there is with wire rope
- Superior corrosion resistance and easy inspection
- Increased safety: Two chains at each lift station for a redundant lifting design
- Each chain is designed for the full capacity, with a 1.5:1 safety factor per chain, or a total safety factor of 3:1 with two chains
- Chains under load do not wrap around a sheave or drum and, thus, do not incur the wear and fatigue associated with wire-rope storage
- No spiral strands twisting under load
- Corrodes from the inside out, requiring destructive testing or expensive inspection equipment
- Wire rope is sized for 12.5% of the winch load, not the full load
- If any part of the 8-part line fails, the whole system fails
- Known wire rope failures occur at an approximate rate of one per year globally, with at least one incident occurring during final testing of a new system
- Wire ropes stretch 15x more than chains
- Typical cranes using wire ropes do not submerge the wire ropes in seawater; comparing that use case with wire rope shiplifts is like comparing apples and oranges
- Winches used with wire ropes have poor load-monitoring accuracy due to their many wraps around sheaves, wire rope fleet angle, and bearing friction; aggregate error is over 15%
- Wire rope systems have no redundancy
Operational Excellence Starts with Informed Decisions – MOBILE
Having the right tool for the job makes all the difference. We’ve engineered the OmniLift™ line of shiplifts to deliver superior performance, safety, and durability. This side-by-side comparison highlights how our product outperforms the competition—offering greater long-term value, seamless integration, and the resilience to excel in even the harshest conditions. See what information has guided leaders to the only vessel sustainment solution that rises to every challenge.
Facility Space
Bardex Chain Shiplift
- Small footprint, requiring only one-third the space of a winch
- Scalable technology provides the same lifting capacity with fewer lift stations, as well as lower up-front and maintenance costs throughout the life of the system
- Narrower pier widths and fewer piles reduce civil costs
Wire Rope
- Takes up 66% more space than a chain lift
- Larger pier widths and more piles than with chain
Usability
Bardex Chain Shiplift
- Simple components, consisting of a single lift cylinder and two small latch actuators controlled by an off-the-shelf control valve
- Straight-line lifting: No highly loaded winch drums or sheaves and no bending loaded lift element, as there is with wire rope
- Superior corrosion resistance and easy inspection
- Increased safety: Two chains at each lift station for a redundant lifting design
- Each chain is designed for the full capacity, with a 1.5:1 safety factor per chain, or a total safety factor of 3:1 with two chains
- Chains under load do not wrap around a sheave or drum and, thus, do not incur the wear and fatigue associated with wire-rope storage
- No spiral strands twisting under load
Wire Rope
- Corrodes from the inside out, requiring destructive testing or expensive inspection equipment
- Wire rope is sized for 12.5% of the winch load, not the full load
- If any part of the 8-part line fails, the whole system fails
- Known wire rope failures occur at an approximate rate of one per year globally, with at least one incident occurring during final testing of a new system
- Wire ropes stretch 15x more than chains
- Typical cranes using wire ropes do not submerge the wire ropes in seawater; comparing that use case with wire rope shiplifts is like comparing apples and oranges
- Winches used with wire ropes have poor load-monitoring accuracy due to their many wraps around sheaves, wire rope fleet angle, and bearing friction; aggregate error is over 15%
- Wire rope systems have no redundancy
