Technical Study: Stacker Crane ASRS for Heavy Titanium Raw Material Storage

Heavy raw material storage is a key challenge in titanium and non-ferrous metal manufacturing. Materials such as sponge titanium and drum-packed raw materials are heavy, high-value, and closely connected with production continuity. Traditional floor stacking often occupies large factory space, creates long handling routes, and increases the difficulty of inventory checking and material delivery.

A Stacker Crane Asrs provides a more structured solution by combining high-bay racking, automated pallet handling, conveyors, AGVs, gantry robots, WMS, and WCS into one coordinated system. For heavy raw material warehouses, the core value is not only higher storage density, but also more stable production feeding, better inventory visibility, and reduced manual handling pressure.

Project Configuration

In one titanium material warehouse project, DELIECN designed a Stacker Crane Asrs for raw material storage and production feeding. The system adopted a high-bay racking structure with:

• warehouse height of about 7 m
• 10-levelracking design
• 2 aislesarranged on north and south sides
• 2,072 effective pallet locations
• load unit of 1,125 kg
• pallet size of 1300 × 1300 × 160 mm
• 2 double-column Stacker Cranes
• conveyors, AGVs, gantry robots, WMS, WCS, API, and ECS

The system can store more than 2,000 tons of sponge titanium raw materials, helping the factory replace large-area ground stacking with high-bay Automated Storage. Compared with traditional storage, the solution improved space utilization by about5 times.

Stacker Crane Technical Features

The stacker cranes were designed as double-column rail-guided machines. Their main movements include horizontal travel, vertical lifting, and fork extension.

Key technical parameters included:

• horizontal travel speed up to 160 m/minempty load
• horizontal travel speed up to 120 m/minloaded
• lifting speed up to 40 m/minempty load
• lifting speed up to 30 m/minloaded
• fork speed up to 30 m/minempty load
• fork speed up to 20 m/minloaded
• travel and lifting positioning accuracy of ±5 mm
• fork repeat positioning accuracy of ±3 mm

The stacker crane uses PLC-based control, vector frequency conversion, absolute positioning, and infrared or Ethernet communication with the control system. With WCS scheduling, the stacker crane, conveyors, AGVs, and gantry robots can work together to complete automated raw material receiving, storage, outbound transfer, and production feeding.

Why Double-Column Design Matters

For 1,125 kg load units, structural rigidity is critical. A double-column stacker crane provides better frame stability for heavy pallet movement. It helps reduce sway during acceleration, lifting, and fork extension.

This is especially important when handling metal raw materials, where load stability and accurate placement directly affect warehouse safety, equipment reliability, and production continuity.

The double-column structure also supports more stable operation in a high-bay environment, making it suitable for heavy-duty raw material warehouses that require both load capacity and positioning accuracy.

Automated Material Flow

The project was designed to connect raw material receiving, storage, outbound delivery, pallet handling, and production feeding.

During inbound operation, materials are placed on pallets and transferred through the conveyor system. After code reading and system verification, WMS assigns storage locations, and WCS schedules the stacker crane to complete automatic storage.

During outbound operation, WMS generates material demand tasks according to production requirements. WCS then coordinates the stacker crane, conveyors, AGVs, and gantry robot system to move materials toward the feeding point.

The gantry robot supports automatic material grabbing and placement, with handling efficiency reaching 40 cycles/hour, improving the stability and accuracy of raw material transfer to production.

System Value

The stacker crane ASRS helped the factory achieve:

• 2,072 effective pallet locationsfor heavy raw material storage
• storage capacity for more than 2,000 tonsof sponge titanium raw materials
• approximately 5 times improvement in space utilizationcompared with traditional storage
• centralized inbound efficiency of 30 pallets/hour
• around 50% improvement in operating efficiencycompared with the previous manual process
• automated raw material receiving, storage, outbound transfer, and production feeding
• gantry robot handling efficiency of 40 cycles/hour
• reduced manual handling intensity for heavy raw materials
• better inventory visibility through WMS and automatic code reading
• more stable connection between warehouse storage and production feeding

Instead of relying on workers to search for materials across the factory, the automated system allows inventory information to be checked in real time and enables logistics equipment to complete material movement automatically.