Most powerful crane in the fleet – Wasel extends crawler crane portfolio with LR 11000

As recently as June this year, Wasel took delivery of an LR 1700 1.0, the latest crawler crane model from Liebherr. The LR 11000 provides even greater capacity. Matthias Wasel, who runs the business with his brother, Thomas, explains: “The lifting capacity requirements in industry and for public infrastructure projects are on the rise. The towers for wind turbines are also increasing in height all the time. That is why we decided to buy Liebherr’s 1000 tonne crane. It means that we are absolutely ready for the next generation of wind turbines.”

Thomas Wasel continues: “The LR 11000 is now the fifth large lattice boom crane in our fleet. All the cranes bear the Liebherr brand. We are impressed by Liebherr products, particularly its crawler cranes. The quality of both the products and Liebherr’s service is top class. It is, of course, also a benefit to stick with a single manufacturer for large cranes in terms of operation, transport and maintenance.”

Wasel is planning the first jobs for the LR 11000 assembling wind turbines and it will also be used later for jobs in industry.

First job with SL10DF2BV wind power system

For its first job, the new LR 11000 was transported to a wind farm in Coesfeld in North Rhine-Westphalia. The new flagship of the Wasel fleet had to prove itself by assembling a wind turbine with a hub height of 170 metres. Julian Schmidt, Technical Director at Wasel, takes up the story: “The powerful SL10 boom was an important criterion for the LR 11000. And we need all its power here at this wind farm. 136 tonnes including the hook block and fastening equipment had to be hoisted to an extreme height of 170 metres with a radius of 29 metres.”

For this job, the crane was set up with the special SL10DF2BV wind turbine system – 162 metre main boom, twelve metre fixed jib, 210 tonnes of turntable ballast, 90 tonnes of central ballast and 450 tonnes of derrick ballast. “The benefits of the V-Frame and VarioTray when working with suspended ballast in the wind industry were clearly demonstrated during this very first job,” continues Schmidt.

The V-frame ballast system is a hydraulically adjustable folding frame which enables the ballast radius of the LR 11000 to be infinitely adjusted between 13 and 30 metres. A rigid ballasting system is no longer required for large radii. VarioTray is a small ballast pallet, which can be unbolted quickly and easily when necessary. This avoids the need for the tiresome stacking and unstacking of ballast slabs. The large ballast pallet is only required to raise and lower the lattice boom.

Wasel employs more than 400 people and has a fleet of around 140 Liebherr mobile and crawler cranes. The customer focuses on providing hoisting and transport services. The company is also a Liebherr dealer for tower cranes and operates over 400 Liebherr tower cranes itself.