Capital Equipment News December 2015

TEREX ® SUPERLIFT 3800 CRAWLER CRANE installs steel bridge B efore the new bridge could be put in place, the old one had to give way. A structure from the ‘60s, the bridge

was considered to be at risk of collapse, and had been closed off to vehicles for quite a while. Accordingly, the run-down bridge was removed two months earlier in a night shift that spanned multiple hours and saw the old structure lifted out after being split into eight sections. The Steil team used a different machine to remove the bridge: a Terex AC 350/6 all terrain crane. The time factor proved to be a challenge throughout: “Since both the old and the new bridges cross over the Paris-Mannheim ICE train route, the overhead lines had to be discon- nected from the grid before the lifts were carried out. We were asked to disrupt the Intercity-Express service as little as possi- ble, this meant that we only had a time win- dow of a few hours in both cases,” reports Martin Mittler, who is in charge of resource planning at Steil and was one of the people responsible for the project. The Steil team did not just face a tight schedule, but also challenging conditions. The work site was right in the middle of a residential area, leaving the team with precious little space and making it diffi- cult both to get the Superlift 3800 crane’s components to the site with a total of 19 trucks and to set it up with a Terex AC 350/6 assist crane. “Fortunately, though, the Superlift 3800 crane is really easy to transport, and that made our lives a lot easier. In fact, the modular quick-connect system, which makes it possible to split the crane’s basic structure into two parts, was one of the reasons why the Superlift 3800 was our crane of choice for this project,” Mittler points out. This enabled crane op- erators Daniel and Mike Schulz to set up the lattice boom crane within the allotted time frame of only two days despite the ad- verse conditions. The unit was set up with an LH1 configuration with a 42-metre main boom, 205 tonnes of superstructure coun- terweight, and 50 tonnes of central ballast. However, the working area for the crane had to first be prepared with red ironwood crane mats, as the unstable ground would have otherwise been unable to bear the ma- chine’s weight. Once the crane was in place, the crane and the working area were ready for lifting the new bridge. The structure was delivered in

two sections and welded on-site, resulting in a total weight of 70 tonnes, including the required slinging gear. After the load was meticulously rigged so that it would be per- fectly balanced, the power to the overhead lines was turned off at 11:30 PM and the lift started: Crane operator Daniel Schulz start- ed by lifting the bridge, which was rigged at four attachment points, to a height of 6 m at a working radius of 26 m, in order to then swing it over the tracks. He then increased the working radius to approximately 30 m by lowering the boom and moved forward by about 1 m. That’s where the trickiest part of the lift came in: “We had to set the bridge down on supports with laser-like precision to make sure it was in the perfect position. Thankfully, the Superlift 3800 is the perfect machine for that kind of precision work, as it has extremely sensitive controls that let you apply just the right touch. In the end, that made the challenge easy to handle,” says Schulz. Mittler added his own comments regarding the crane’s advantages and says “When our customers hear that we’re using our Super- lift 3800 crane with its standard fall protec- tion system, they know that we’re literally

on the safe side during assembly at the site, which makes coordination much easier and saves us from having to sort out that type of detail.” Project Manager Burghard Hass, who works for the company that fabricat- ed the bridge – Dillingen-based Stahlbau Schäfer, was also tremendously happy with how the lift went and commented, “It was really something to see, the way the crane handled the task so magnificently. I mean, I was astonished when I saw the level of precision that could be achieved with such a gigantic piece of machinery.” The tail end of the lift also went smoothly: In just ten hours, the Superlift 3800 crane was disassembled and loaded on trucks in order to start its journey to its next project – which, the Steil team is sure, will once again show just how reliable, powerful, and versatile the crane is.

CAPITAL EQUIPMENT NEWS DECEMBER 2015 24