Four Liebherr luffing jib cranes helping to build the future landmark of Azerbaijan

The project was designed by South Korean architecture agency "Heerim Architects & Planners" and comprises three parts, the Crescent Hotel, the Crescent City and the Crescent Place. The "La Luna" luxury hotel is to be built on a small artificial island and will reach 166 m up into the air. Based on the half-moon on the flag of Azerbaijan, the hotel will be shaped like a vertical sickle open at the bottom. Next to the luxury hotel, "The Crescent Bay" will be a shopping centre covering an area of around 50,000m² with an indoor and outdoor area, a modern residential complex with 100 apartments and 20 duplex terraced houses as well as an innovative office building with 38 storeys.

Special assembly of Liebherr luffing jib cranes

The customer Gilan Holding decided on four Liebherr luffing jib cranes. They are able to climb up the inside of the building thus leaving space on the ground for other construction machinery. They climb through openings in the storey ceilings. That means that the entire climbing system is easily accessible. The resulting cavities are closed again as soon as the cranes have climbed past them.

The first storeys of the building had been completed when the cranes were assembled in April 2015. That meant that all four Liebherr luffing jib cranes were attached by a crawler crane from above to the external frame. Two 280 HC-L 12/24 Litronic and two 542 HC-L 18/36 Litronic are now working on the project. The two 280 HC-L cranes have a maximum hook height of 177m, a radius of 35m, a lifting capacity of 11t at the jib head and a 110kW heavy-duty hoist gear. The two 542 HC-L cranes have a radius of 50m, a lifting capacity at the jib head of 9.7t and a motor capacity of 160kW to reach a maximum hook height of 194m. The entire reinforced concrete structure for the hotel will be erected by the four Liebherr cranes.

The Tower Crane Solutions Department at Liebherr provided the building contractor with support for planning the project and during the construction phase, which was one of the reasons for working with Liebherr. The technical expertise and excellent service also played an important role in reaching this decision. The four luffing jib cranes from Liebherr are the first internal-climbing cranes in Azerbaijan.