Shipping a ten-tonne machine frame

A machine frame can be designed, fabricated and machined perfectly and still arrive as a problem. Freight for heavy weldments is a different discipline from ordinary export shipping, and the decisions that matter are mostly made at design stage — long before anyone books a vessel.

The single most useful thing to know is where the cost cliffs are, because they are steep and they are geometric.

The dimensions that change the price category

Standard 40 ft container. Internal roughly 12.03 × 2.35 × 2.39 m, payload commonly 26–28 tonnes. Cheapest option by a wide margin.

40 ft high cube. Same footprint, internal height about 2.69 m. Free extra height; use it.

Open top. Same footprint, tarpaulin roof, loaded by crane from above. Useful when the part cannot be pushed in on a forklift. Modest premium.

Flat rack. Platform with end walls, no sides or roof. Takes parts wider and taller than a container. A real step up in cost, and the part is exposed to weather and salt for the whole voyage.

Breakbulk / out-of-gauge. The part is lifted onto the vessel as an individual piece. Costs a multiple of container freight, schedules are less frequent, and it needs specialist handling at both ports.

The cliff between the third and fourth rows is the one worth designing around. A frame 2,300 mm wide travels in a standard container. At 2,450 mm it goes on a flat rack, and the freight bill can double or worse — for 150 mm.

This is why the split question deserves a serious look on anything near the limit. Two bolted halves that each fit a standard container frequently cost less to ship than one piece costs to move at all; the joint design is covered in bolted or welded machine frame construction.

Weight, and the road leg nobody prices

The sea leg tolerates weight well. The road legs at both ends do not.

Container road weight limits vary by jurisdiction and are typically well below what the box itself can carry. A 28-tonne payload that sails without comment may need a permit, a specific route and sometimes an escort on the road at the destination. That cost and that delay belong to the buyer under most Incoterms and are routinely discovered late.

Ask three questions before the design is frozen:

• What crane capacity is available at the destination, and where exactly?
• What road weight limit applies on the final leg?
• Is there a loading dock, or does the part come off by crane?

A frame that needs a 40-tonne mobile crane at a customer site with no hardstanding is a problem that costs more than the frame.

Crating a machine frame properly

Machine frames are not shipped bare. Three things the packing must do:

Carry the load through the structure, not through the machined faces. The crate base must locate under the frame’s stiff points — the same support philosophy as machining and inspection, discussed in first article inspection on large weldments. A frame blocked under an unsupported span arrives with a set in it.

Restrain it in six directions. Sea transit is not gentle. A container rolls, pitches, and takes shock loads from handling. Lashing must resist longitudinal, transverse and vertical movement — including uplift, which is the one most often neglected and the one that lets a 10-tonne part become a hammer.

Keep water off the machined surfaces. Condensation inside a container over a thirty-day voyage is substantial: the steel is cold, the air is humid, and it rains inside the box. VCI wrap over the protected machined surfaces plus desiccant inside the wrapping is the standard answer, and the coating and masking specification that precedes it is covered in surface treatment for machine frames that cross an ocean.

Two practical requirements to put in the PO: ISPM 15 heat-treated timber, without which the shipment can be refused or fumigated at the border, and marked lifting points on both the part and the crate, with rated capacity. Frames get lifted from whatever looks convenient when the drawing is not to hand.

Shock and tilt indicators are cheap and worth fitting on high-value frames. They do not prevent damage; they settle the question of when it happened, which is what an insurance claim turns on.

Incoterms, chosen for who is competent rather than who is cheap

The Incoterms 2020 rules allocate cost, risk and responsibility. For heavy machine frames from Asia, four appear regularly:

EXW (Ex Works). Buyer takes everything from the factory gate, including loading and export clearance. Maximum control, maximum administrative burden, and it requires a freight partner who is genuinely competent with heavy cargo at origin. Not recommended unless you have one.

FCA (Free Carrier). Seller clears for export and delivers to the carrier. Meaningfully better than EXW for most buyers, because export clearance in the origin country is the part a foreign buyer handles worst.

FOB (Free On Board). Seller delivers on board the vessel; risk transfers there. The traditional choice for container sea freight from Asia and a sensible default. Note that FOB is technically intended for conventional sea freight rather than containerised cargo, where FCA is the doctrinally correct term — in practice FOB is used universally and understood by everyone.

CIF / CIP. Seller arranges and pays main carriage and insurance. Convenient, and the buyer loses visibility of the freight cost and control of the routing. For a one-off frame, fine. For a programme, you usually want the control.

DAP / DDP. Delivered at place, with DDP including import duties. Maximum convenience, highest price, and DDP puts a foreign seller in charge of your customs position, which is rarely a good idea.

For most machine frame buyers: FOB or FCA at origin, with your own forwarder handling the main carriage. You see the real freight cost, you control the routing, and the seller handles the part of the process that happens in their own country.

The documents

Missing or wrong paperwork strands cargo at a port, and demurrage on a heavy container accumulates daily.

• Commercial invoice and packing list, with weights and dimensions matching reality
• Bill of lading
• Certificate of origin — relevant to duty rates under trade agreements, and worth getting right
• ISPM 15 certificate for the timber
• Mill certificates, inspection and NDT reports, travelling with the documents rather than inside the crate
• Insurance certificate

That sixth point is a small thing that causes real delay: a full quality package sealed inside a crate is a package you cannot review before accepting delivery. Send documents electronically in advance, always.

Design decisions that save freight

1. Check the largest dimension against 2,350 mm before freezing the design.
2. Use the high-cube height — it is free.
3. Design lifting points in, rated and marked, positioned so a sling does not foul machined faces.
4. Consider a bolted split at anything near a container limit.
5. Give the part a stable base that a crate can support at stiff points.
6. Confirm the destination crane and road limits before, not after.

If you want a frame assessed for shipping category before the design is frozen, send the drawing through — the review comes back within 24 business hours and includes whether the part fits a container as drawn.