September 30, 2024 8:00 CEST 6 min read
Meet the ZETA 24 J, a cutting-edge truck-mounted platform with 10 meters of working height and 12 meters of outreach. Built with Strenx® steel, it offers exceptional versatility and unmatched safety for operators, and redefines aerial work platforms.
The town of Rivoli Veronese in north-eastern Italy, a short distance from Lake Garda, is home to one of CTE plants. The Italian company, which started out in 1981 with the production and sale of elevators, nowadays manufactures truck-mounted platforms and spider lifts for customers all over the world.
To date, CTE has produced and distributed more than 17,000 truck mounted platforms.
“Our customers want reliable and safe units. Units that allow them to perform work at height, like cleaning windows, work over roofs and near trees. The main challenge we have been focusing to fulfill those needs has been to make our machines lighter because of the new emission regulations. So in order to have similar or even better performances in our units we need to use thinner and stronger steel,” says Roberto Berritta, Technical Product & Innovation Manager at CTE.
“SSAB has squeezed every single drop of capability out of the steel over the years.”
Roberto Berritta, Technical Product & Innovation Manager at CTE
The company's latest solution to this challenge is its CTE ZETA 24 J, a truck-mounted platform, crafted from Strenx® 700 MC steel and Strenx® 960 CR steel.
“The ZETA 24 J has been developed with one thing in mind only – to have the maximum performance on a narrow jacking configuration. It means that we don't have extendable outriggers anymore, only outriggers straight down,” says Roberto Berritta.
ZETA 24 J is developed and designed for the rental industry, and to offer the operator great versatility as well as excellent working height and outreach. Simply explained, it offers 24 meters of working height, 12 meters of outreach and a basket capacity of 250 kg.
“The main advantage for the operator and rental companies is that it is very easy to use. Then we have been able to put the maximum performances on the upper structure by up to 10 meters and over by almost 12 meters. That's an amazing performance even for a unit with extendable outriggers. We have designed a machine that does the same performances on narrow jackets as with extendable outriggers,” says Roberto Berritta.
These benefits to the end customers are made possible by the fact that SSAB's crafted Strenx® 700 MC and Strenx® 960 CR steel is used in all of the truck-mounted platforms' structural parts.
“To achieve all this we needed the thinnest and strongest steel possible – like the Strenx 960. Very thin, 1.5 mm, with shapes of the boom and the pantagraph, that were allowing for the same resistance, the same structural integrity and the same capability of resisting buckling. All these things together with a steel that still can be welded and guarantee a long life cycle. At least 100,000 cycles over 10 years of operation,” says Roberto Berritta.
The result of using 1.5 mm Strenx® 700 MC and Strenx® 960 CR steel is 25 percent reduced weight in the upper structure of the truck-mounted platform.
“When we started this work of improvement in order to make our machines lighter we were using 3-4 mm thick Strenx 700 steel. Then we slowly used thinner and thinner steel, and now we use 1.5 mm steel. The upper structure before weighed around 1,250 kilo and today weighs around 1,000 kilo and has even better performance,” says Roberto Berritta.
CTE has been a SSAB customer since the 1990s, and has received several awards and nominations for its products and technical solutions. In 2018, it came second in The Swedish Steel Prize for developing a highly innovative truck-mounted sky-lift that gives access to confined spaces where traditional solutions fail.
Since 2015 CTE has been a member of the My Inner Strenx® customer program.
“The collaboration with SSAB has been absolutely great. The technical department has been supporting us with technical information and suggestions, allowing us not only to design the best product but also to train our suppliers on how to weld the steel. So we were designing following SSAB’s suggestions, and they have made us the best player on the national and international market. SSAB has squeezed every single drop of capability out of the steel over the years,” says Roberto Berritta, Technical Product & Innovation Manager at CTE.
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