Alimak Hek is a world leading supplier of vertical transport solutions for the industrial and construction sector. The hoists which Alimak Hek mainly produces are driven by a machinery which climbs up for a rack pinion that is screwed into a hoist mast. In and out passage of the hoist takes place through a vertical car gate, which is sized for the right associated hoist car. Counterweights are today used to balance the weight of the car gate which makes the car gate light and easy to open and close. Alimak Hek has highlighted the problems that today’s counterweights add to the vertical car gates, which include the added weight which decreases the load capacity. It also requires many different variants of counterweights to suit all different car gate sizes.

The purpose of this bachelor thesis project is to freely, from the ground up, develop a new counterweight design or other technical solution to balance the vertical car gates.  A preliminary study which includes review of today’s solution, customer survey, interviews and benchmarking of other existing solutions available on the market will be conducted.  The preliminary study will lead to the development of a specification of requirements which will be used as a part of the selection process for a final concept.The final concept will be partly presented in the theory section of this report, where calculations for the machine elements required will be presented. The development of concepts and final selection of concept will take place in three different stages. These three stages include two completed workshops and the different selection rounds, thus leading to a final choice of concept. After selecting a final concept, a more thorough work is carried out where modeling through the CAD tool PTC/Creo and associated calculations are included.

The result of the developed concept is then commented on the report’s discussion section where goals, specification of requirements and comparison with today’s solution are discussed. Finally, continued work and possible sources of error are listed.