NEXT GENERATION HEAVY-LIFT WIRE ROPE SLINGS
Gator Laid slings were developed in conjunction with the offshore oil industry to provide the world’s best heavy lift slings and grommets. These products were designed by Slingmax Inc. in the USA, in consultation with key players in the lifting industry. A multipart wire rope product, Gator Laid slings were designed to improve upon the obvious shortcomings of cable laid slings & grommets. They comply with the requirements of the Wire Rope Technical Board (WRTB). Wire Rope Users Manual.
This is the strongest multi-part sling with great flexibility. It will develop it’s full strength on small pins with a D/d ratio of 1/1 where D is the pin and d is the sling body. (4/1 D/d when comparing the pin to the component parts.) For heavy lifting work this is the most efficient wire rope sling that meets all the standards. The eyes have the wire ropes (12) laid in parallel so that there is no cross over and then they are wrapped in heavy duty material to keep them in position. Close tolerances are maintained during manufacturing, over conventional slings.

Advantages of Gator Slings:

• Lighter in Weight
• Greater Flexibility
• Safer Terminations
• Safer Inspection

Gator Laid slings have nine parts in the body and twelve parts in the eyes. The Safe Working Load (SWL) is calculated based on 9 parts and the sling construction is described as 9x(6x36/6x19+iwrc) when the component rope is a 6x36+iwrc or 6x19+iwrc construction. The SWL is calculated from the sum of the component rope MBL’s (9) multiplied by a 0.9 efficiency factor. This efficiency factor takes into consideration the spinning loss and the termination efficiency, so no other reductions need to be considered and the SWL may be calculated directly from the MBL using the appropriate design factor (DF).
Hence SWL = (MBL × 9 parts × 0.9) / 5

The Main Benefits of this product are:

• Lighter in Weight: Depending on the size & length, Gator slings may be around 45% lighter than the equivalent cable laid product. This reduction is achieved by the use of parallel-laid eyes, braided body construction and a higher termination efficiency.

• Greater Flexibility & Easier Handling: The body construction of the Gator sling is made up of nine parts, which are laid up in three groups of three component ropes each. There is no core rope in the sling or at the eyes.

• Safer Terminations: The slings are terminated using aluminium ferrules – a well known and tried-and-tested method, universally demanded by the lifting industry for wire rope slings. The result is a safe termination without slippage under load. Added to this is the greater ergonomics of the Gator laid eye that requires no maintenance after lifting.

• Easier & Safer Inspections: In a Gator laid sling, all the component wire ropes are visible all the time – there is no core rope hidden by outer strands. Thus, visual inspection is easy and safe.