COSMOS used to analyze the world's largest boat handling forklift

Company Wiggins Lift Company, Inc. Industry Heavy Equipment Location U.S.A Product Used COSMOSWorks Type of Analysis Linear Static, Buckling More Details

The Challenge
When you need to lift a 40 foot yacht, no average forklift will do. Gulf Harbor Marina in Nokomis, Florida needed a forklift that could lift a Sea Ray 370 Express Cruiser - a yacht so heavy that most forklifts cannot raise it. They also wanted a vehicle that could pick up smaller boats and stack them on top racks 54-feet high inside the boat warehouse. Where do you go to have the largest forklift in the world custom designed, engineered, and built - in only two months?

The Solution
Wiggins Lift Company, Inc. in Oxnard, California specializes in the design and development of rough terrain and industrial forklifts. With state-of-the-art design capabilities, Wiggins satisfies customer specific material handling needs by configuring the right system for each user.

Because of the incredibly tight two-week deadline on the design for this project, there was tremendous pressure to complete the analysis on time. Wiggins needed an analysis program that was fast and powerful enough to solve complex problems quickly without compromising accuracy. Wiggins Lift selected COSMOSWorks because of its speed, integration with CAD, and pre and post processing capabilities. But what really impressed Wiggins engineers was its ease-of-use. Within one hour of obtaining the product, Dennis Alls was able to use COSMOSWorks productively. Not only did Wiggins Lift meet their deadline, they were able to create the world's largest boat handling forklift with the confidence that their design was safe, well tested and ready to lift.

Summary and Metrics:

• Incredibly tight two-week deadline on the design for this project
• Solved models with over 60,000 elements in 15 minutes
• Accurately predicted real world behavior of the model