7.1 FOREWORD

Winches are versatile lifting and pulling appliances, lending themselves to easy adaptation and are widely used throughout industry for both permanent and temporary rigging applications. The range of designs and capacities is extensive and many are designed for specific applications. They may be power or manually operated.

Although winches provide only a winding mechanism which, if the manufacturer has covered it in the design specification, may be used as a means of raising and lowering loads in lifting operations. They may be fitted or built into structures to enable loads to be moved from one position to another. They may also be used to advantage as a safe method of lifting loads in confined spaces as they can be arranged to occupy less headroom than other lifting appliances and the operative may be remote from the load. This latter feature may also be of benefit in other circumstances.

It is impossible in a document of this nature to cover all of the design and application variations and it is therefore necessary to limit the scope to the more common types and applications. The advice offered in respect of usage is therefore limited to basic principles, although the requirements for other types of winch and applications may have much in common with these.

The use of winches for lifting purposes is always associated with other lifting accessories, guidance on which may be found in the relevant sections of this code, and often the use is in conjunction with pulley blocks. Although some types of winch may be used with fibre ropes, this document has been limited to wire rope applications.

The advice offered in this section of the code is aimed solely at lifting applications or applications involving an element of lifting. The principles laid down may be applied to pulling applications if so desired, although in some cases they may be found to be excessively restrictive.