As the construction process of concrete frames becomes more rapid, the need for innovative products to allow new construction techniques to be employed has been embraced by this year’s winner – PERI. Its rail climbing technology, and in particular the climbing shoe, has been used with great effect to greatly enhance the use of protection panels in medium-and high-rise concrete buildings.
 

The new family of PERI rail climbing systems, for medium- to high-rise multi-storey construction, incorporates an innovative climbing shoe that advances the processes associated with climbing scaffolds and protection panels, thus enabling far greater use of self-climbing technology. The two principle applications to use this shoe are the RCS-P and RCS-C systems.

• RCS-P protection panels provide an enclosure to the leading three floors of a building.
• RCS-C climbing scaffolds provide a safe working platform upon which formwork is mounted and is raised to subsequent floors following the construction of each level.

Both systems use a pair of rails forming a framework that is connected to the structure by the innovative PERI climbing shoe. The shoe incorporates hinged runners that guide the rail during climbing. The integrated climbing pawl automatically engages the connection bolts of the climbing rail and secures it at 500mm intervals. The shoe can be anchored to either the wall or slab with the corresponding wall or slab bearing. Load transfer into the building is provided by the certified PERI climbing anchor system.
 

This climbing shoe overcomes problems that currently hinder the use of climbing systems:

• The hinged runners make mounting of the climbing units trouble free as the climbing rails need not be inserted vertically into closed climbing shoes. The units are offered up horizontally to the open shoes, simplifying installation and saving time on site. The same applies upon completion of the structure whereby the removal of the units is carried out horizontally from re-opened shoes. This reduces the necessary crane height required or the need to climb units down through shoes to remove it from the structure.
• The hinged bearing in the climbing shoe compensates for vertical rail inclinations of up to 4° meaning steps in the slab edge/structure are overcome, allowing for easy movement of the rail through the shoe. Furthermore, with a special double hinged wall bearing, the climbing shoe can be horizontally swivelled up to 15° for use on circular structures.
• The high strength of the shoe and anchor mechanism allow the rail to be cantilevered over two floors in the RCS-P application, thus halving lifting operations as the units only require lifting on every other floor.
• The pawl in the climbing shoe works in conjunction with a hydraulic cylinder if self-climbing is required. This simplifies the mechanical parts in the climbing device enabling lightweight mobile hydraulic components to be used. Consequently, the cost of self-climbing technology has been significantly reduced enabling the economic use of hydraulic self-climb-ing technology on much lower structures.