28 / 46
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