Competition: Top Lift 2016
07 September 2016
Entries for this year’s IC Top Lift 2016 competition include a selection of complicated and impressive lifts from across the world - completed in the last 12 months. Readers are asked to pick their favourite lift from our selection of 10 outstanding projects.
To place your vote, please complete and return this form by 30 November. You can also vote via our Facebook and Twitter social media accounts. The winner will be revealed in the December issue of International Cranes and Specialized Transport magazine.
Entry 1 - Precision lift
Equipment user: ALE
Lifting equipment used: super heavy lift crane
Location: Izmir province, Turkey
Together with crane operator Izmir Vinc, ALE used the AL.SK190 super heavy lift crane to upright a 600 tonne vacuum tower and an 800 tonne crude column, lifting them over a 20 metre high pipe rack and landing them safely into their final positions at the Greenfiled petrochemical site. The tallest item measured more than 80 m.
Entry 2 - Boom booster
Equipment user: Sarens
Lifting equipment used: crawler crane
Location: Gulf Coast, USA
Heavy lifting and transport company Sarens helped to lift a 641 tonne distillation column in the Gulf Coast region of the United States. The column was 87.1 metres tall and to lift it into position the company used its Terex CC 8800-1 lattice boom crawler crane fitted with a Boom Booster kit. This configuration increased the crane's lifting capacity by 5 percent allowing it to be able to lift the vessel. The lift required the crane to work at a radius of 28 m with 96 m main boom.
Entry 3 - Team strength
Equipment user: MHPSA
Lifting equipment used: tower cranes
Location: Kusile, South Africa
To help with the construction of the Kusile Power Plant project in the Nkangala district, Mpumalanga Province, South Africa, Mitsubishi Hitachi Power Systems Americas (MHPSA) put seven Wolff tower cranes on site, including four Wolff 1250 B and three Wolff 355 B tower cranes. Tasks for the cranes include moving steel and concrete elements weighing up to 60 tonnes. Approximately 115,000 tonnes of steel will be installed in the construction.
Entry 4 - Slow and steady
Equipment user: Fagioli
Lifting equipment used: strand jack and tower lift system
Location: Rajasthan, India
Fagioli lifted a generator stator weighing 321 tonnes by means of strand jacking and a tower lift system in Rajasthan. The Fagioli India team lifted the stator to a height of 17 metres and, once in position, it was skidded for 27 metres using an EZ gantry self-propelled system before being placed into its final position. The whole operation took around five hours to perform.
Entry 5 - Super heavy
Equipment user: Mammoet
Lifting equipment used: crawler cranes
Location: Gina Krog oilfield, Norway
Mammoet lifted a 17,500 tonne jacket for the Gina Krog oilfield using three crawler crawler cranes: a Liebherr LR 11350, a Terex
CC 6800 and two Terex CC 2800 cranes. The sides (rows) of the jacket were constructed at ground level and, after completion, were ‘rolled-up’. It was a challenging lift as the three cranes had to be used simultaneously to roll-up the two rows weighing 4,200 tonnes.
Entry 6 - Crane installation
Equipment user: Whiting Corporation
Lifting equipment used: Overhead crane
Location: Michigan, USA
Overhead crane operator Whiting Corporation installed and commissioned a 250 tonne turbine bridge crane while adjacent turbine generators ran at full power with no down time. More than 2,268 tonnes were rigged and lifted while adding the second overhead crane to the nuclear generating station. The installation saved the company US $18 million and also cut the retrofit outage by a week.
Entry 7 - Tricky terrain
Equipment user: W.O.Grubb
Lifting equipment used: crawler crane
Location: North Carolina, USA
Crane rental company W.O.Grubb used a Manitowoc MLC300 lattice boom crawler to replace a 190 tonne industrial lime kiln at a plant in Wilmington, North Carolina. The lift called for a crane that could fit into a tight space and raise the kiln, but could still handle the
soft and wet terrain. The Variable Position Counterweight (VPC) and its ability to reduce the ground bearing pressure of the crane came in very useful.
Entry 8 - Lifting at altitude
Equipment user: Enercon
Lifting equipment used: tower crane
Location: Black Forest, Germany
Wind energy company Enercon used a Liebherr 1000 EC-B 125 Litronic tower crane to erect a wind turbine with a hub height of 149 metres – the largest turbine erection ever for this crane. The turbine, with a rotor diameter of 115 m, was erected at an altitude of around 800 m in the Prechtaler Schanze Wind Farm in the Black Forest, Germany, on the hills between the towns of Gutach and Mühlenbach.
Entry 9 - Multiple lifts
Equipment user: Schmidbauer
Lifting equipment used: gantry crane
Location: Szczecin, Poland
Schmidbauer used a 1,400 tonne capacity gantry crane rigged with below the hook equipment by Modulift to lift 91 tower pieces weighing 380 tonnes each onto barges in Poland for transportation. The crane, owned by Bilfinger Mars offshore, stands
120 metres high on the Ostrow Brodowski Island and is a permanent fixture at the facility. Schmidbauer accepted a scope of work to rig the crane, using two of its four 350 tonne hooks.
Entry 10 - Tandem hoist
Equipment user: Guindastes Tatuapé
Lifting equipment used: mobile cranes
Location: São Paulo, Brazil
Contractor Guindastes Tatuapé used LTM 1500-8.1 and LTM 1750-9.1 wheeled mobile cranes from Liebherr for the tandem hoist of the metal structure of the bell tower of the National Sanctuary of Nossa Senhora Aparecida, in São Paulo. The bell tower was 36 metres tall and weighed approximately 97 tonnes. It was first positioned horizontally, and one of the sides of its base was fixed with two rods that would articulate as the structure was raised.
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