Cold stores play a vital role in the storage of food, medicines and other products that are sensitive to temperature. But these goods also need to be moved, often in large quantities and quickly. Specially designed cranes, often found in such facilities, can help in this task.
How does a cold store work?
Cold stores are special facilities that keep the products they contain at low temperatures, to preserve their quality and freshness.
A constant, sufficiently low temperature is ensured by the cooling systems in the installations, which use compressors, evaporators and condensers for the cooling processes.
The refrigerant passes through different parts of the system, where it extracts heat from inside the store and releases it into the environment.
For efficient cooling, the cold stores heavily insulated walls, floors and ceilings, to prevent external heat ingress and minimise energy consumption.
The proper functioning of the system is advanced temperature control systems ensure, which use sensors and automated control units to precisely control the temperature.
For some products, not only temperature but also humidity is critical. In cold stores, humidity control systems ensure that the humidity of the air is kept at the right level.
Other aspects of cold storage as a warehouse function, so they use good practices and record-keeping systems to monitor the entry and exit of products and their optimised storage location.
Efficient and fast lifting
In cold stores, automated lifting equipment (stacker cranes) are most often used to move and store products, as they particularly efficient use of space and fast access.
These special cranes consist of a vertical tower and a horizontally moving trolley.
The trolley moves vertically along the tower and horizontally across the storage area.
This is the combined movement allows the crane to reach the stored products quickly and accurately.
In order to increase efficiency and reduce the need for human labour, these systems are often automated. Automated cranes are able to move products autonomously on the basis of programmed instructions, thus reducing the possibility of error and increasing the operating speed.
Because they are able to place the stored products at high heights and densities, the cranes allow the maximum space usage, which is particularly important in cold storage warehouses where the available refrigerated space is expensive and limited.
A properly designed crane system can therefore make a major contribution to the efficient storage of temperature and humidity-sensitive goods in cold stores, both in terms of space utilisation and energy consumption, and to the economical operation of cold stores.
