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the other topless crane with SA French.
A month after we had placed that order,
SA French came to us with the opportunity
to purchase the Potain MCT85F5 at a very
good price,” says Simmonds. “It was one
of those once-in-a-lifetime deals.”
Space challenges
From a coordination planning point of view,
the contractor faces major constraints with
the footprint of the building in relation to the
available laydown area. “So, material handling
and delivery is quite a headache,” says
Simmonds. “It all comes down to planning and
we have since overcome that with the arrival
of our MCT85F5 topless crane.”
“Getting materials vertically in a timeous
manner to all the various floors is of essence
to the workflow processes on site. We have
now introduced the second crane which is
purely for wet trades, such as brickwork,”
says Simmonds, adding that from a critical
path point of view, a total of 3,5 million
bricks have to go up to the various floor
levels. “From a supply point of view, as the
main contractor we have to provide our sub-
contractors with sufficient material every
day to meet the production timeline, hence
the arrival of the second crane on site.”
“The reason Probuild opted for a flat top
tower crane on this site is because of the
limited available space between the jib of
the existing Potain MD310B tower crane
and the top of the building,” says Louw
Smit, sales manager at SA French.
Crane establishment and disestablish-
ment generally contributes heavily on the
cost of the contract, and this is one of the
key issues that the flat top design of the
MCT85F5 addresses. One of the crane’s
key features is that it offers the luxury to
erect or dismantle it in 5 and 10 m piec-
es; the full jib doesn’t need to be lifted
as one piece.
Capital Equipment News
witnessed the erection of the Potain
MCT85F5 at Probuild’s building site in
Sandton, which was a unique experience
in the sense that it steered clear of the nor-
mal erecting standards of a tower crane.
The existing Potain MD310B tower crane
on site was used to erect the new MCT85F5
tower crane. It is most unusual to erect a
tower crane in this manner as it is usually
assembled along with a mobile crane. This
saved a lot of time and space constraints to
deploy a mobile crane. Quentin van Breda,
managing director of SA French, says the
unique erection method circumvented the
need for the nearby road to be cordoned
off to traffic. “Using a mobile crane would
have called for a partial, probably one-
• Overall height reduced with the crane having no top tower (topless crane)
• The design allows it to overfly other cranes on congested sites
• Jib can be erected/dismantled in 5 and 10 m pieces; the full jib does not have to be
lifted as one piece
• All the components of the crane can be containerised in standard containers for
easy shipping and transporting from site to site
• Comes with a 40LVF13 hoist winch reaching lift speeds of up to 81,5 m per minute
with a new power control function
• The winch can be adjusted to power sources using either 50 Hz or 60 Hz, protecting
components and simplifying set up
• New power control function allows the crane to work on job sites where power
supply is limited
KEY FEATURES/BENEFITS OF THE POTAIN MCT85F5
JOBSITE REPORT
The manual
turning of the
slewing turret
facilitates lifting
the counter jib and
having the slew
turret in the correct
position.
CAPITAL EQUIPMENT NEWS
DECEMBER 2016
17