Glossary of Coil Handling Equipment Terms Every Buyer Should Know

Coil handling equipment comes with its own vocabulary, and buyers evaluating quotes or spec sheets for the first time often run into terms that aren't defined anywhere obvious. This glossary covers the core equipment types and a few general terms that come up across nearly every coil handling conversation.

Crane attachments

C Hook — A rigid, C-shaped attachment that engages the inner bore of a steel coil, hanging from a crane hook block. Available in standard fixed, counterweight, spring, motorised rotation, and container load variants; Pragya's range runs up to 70 ton.

Coil Grab — A mechanical attachment that clamps onto a coil's outer or inner diameter with no external power required. Available in standard, solid bar, and motorized variants, up to 45 ton and coil diameters of 1067–1880 mm.

Coil Tong — Grips a coil's outer diameter using adjustable jaws, in manual, hydraulic, or motorised configurations, up to 45 ton with an OD range of 800–2000 mm.

Slab Tong — Similar in concept to a coil tong but designed for lifting steel slabs rather than coils, with automatic adjustment and an auto-latch mechanism for secure gripping up to 45 ton.

Aerial Coil Tilter — A crane-mounted device that rotates coils between vertical and horizontal orientation directly from the crane, up to 40 ton, eliminating the need for a separate floor-mounted tilter.

Rotation and positioning equipment

Coil Tilter — A floor-mounted machine that rotates a coil through 0–90° between vertical (eye-up) and horizontal (eye-out) orientation, in hydraulic or mechanical configurations up to 45 ton.

Turnstile — A rotating platform providing 360° continuous rotation for positioning material during handling, processing, or inspection, up to 70 ton in manual or hydraulic actuation.

Trolley with Tilter — Combines floor transfer and hydraulic tilting functions in a single machine, in manual and motorized variants with 0–90° tilting.

Transfer equipment

Motorised Trolley — An electrically powered transport platform for coils and heavy loads, up to 150 ton, available in hydraulic tipper, L-type, and coil transfer configurations.

Pillar-Type Coil Car — Combines lifting and transport on a fixed-rail system, up to 150 ton, with hydraulic or electric drive.

Scissor-Type Trolley — Uses a hydraulic scissor mechanism for combined transport and vertical lifting, up to 35 ton with adjustable lifting height.

Processing and line equipment

Uncoiler/Recoiler — Uncoilers unwind a coil to feed a processing line; recoilers rewind processed strip. Pragya's systems handle 5–60 ton coils, 152–1829 mm wide, with hydraulic mandrel expansion and tension control.

Pipe Rotator — Provides motorized rotation for pipes during welding and inspection, up to 3000 mm diameter and 100 ton.

Pipe Lifting Tackle — Slings and cradles for lifting finished pipe without surface damage, with working load limits from 100 kg to 30 ton.

General terms

SWL (Safe Working Load) — The maximum load a piece of lifting equipment is rated to handle safely, set with a safety factor (commonly 4:1 per IS 3815 / EN 13157) below the load at which failure would actually occur.

Coil OD / Coil ID — Outer diameter and inner diameter of a coil, respectively. Coil ID is the bore dimension that a C hook or mandrel engages; coil OD is the overall wound diameter that a coil grab or tong typically clamps around.

Proof Load Test — A test performed above a piece of equipment's rated SWL (often 125% of SWL) to verify it can handle its rated capacity before entering service.

This list covers the equipment most commonly discussed in coil handling procurement conversations; the product pages linked above carry full specifications for each type, and the full range is on our steel handling and testing equipment page. For a deeper read on the three main crane attachments, see C hook types and selection, coil tong types and selection, and coil grab vs C hook.

Availability in India

Designed and built at Pragya's Pithampur (Indore) works and supplied to rolling mills, service centres, and steel plants across India. Equipment is fabricated to the relevant IS standards, delivered by road to your plant, and installed and commissioned on site by our own engineers, who also train your operators.