The master of all roads

The LTM 1100-5.3 can get to places that no other 5-axle crane can access.

You may have seen the LTM 1100-5.3 live already – we unveiled it at our Bauma stand in Munich on a 2.55 metre “road”. Not only is it the lightest, but it is also the narrowest mobile crane on five axles. The LTM 1100-5.3 combines mobility, performance and economy on a whole new level – it features a powerful 62 metre telescopic boom and can carry up to 16.9 tonnes of ballast on public roads with an axle load of just 12 tonnes. Our new 100 tonne crane also delivers global economical mobility as it can travel with an axle load of just 9 tonnes. That is a unique new feature for 5-axle mobile cranes. That is also the reason that we created its slogan, “The master of all roads”.

In their everyday crane business, our customers not only want maximum performance and boom length, but are also ever more frequently faced with the topics of mobility and road permits.

Laura Rothmund from our Shipment Department, one of whose jobs is to apply for road permits for cranes ready for shipment, knows all about this: “A whole series of bridges which are now ageing or are already showing signs of damage now have reduced weight limits which means that they are no longer suitable for all cranes. For example, for trips to the German North Sea ports, we have to undertake long diversions to bypass these bridges. In this respect, the new LTM 1100-5.3 is worth its weight in gold because its nine tonne axle load and gross weight of less than 44 tonnes mean that not only can it reduce journeys by many kilometres, both our customers and we are benefiting from shorter processing times and longer validity periods for road permits and from fewer road and driving time restrictions.”

There are ramshackle roads and bridges in many countries which is why demand for cranes with lower axle loads and gross weights is growing in many parts of the world. Julian Rapp from our Product Management team worked on the design of the new LTM 1100-5.3: “We achieved an axle load of nine tonnes on this crane simply by removing the counterweight plates. It could not be simpler. On other cranes, components such as outriggers have to be removed to achieve the same result. But of course that is much more complicated.”

Our Design, Structural Engineering and Product Management teams are working closely together to find the best possible weight distribution for the individual counterweight plates to demonstrate a range of practical axle load versions. For the LTM 1100-5.3, we designed the counterweight plates so that it can carry 4.4 tonnes of ballast with an axle load of ten tonnes and a gross weight of 48 tonnes. “Our customers take as much ballast with them as they are allowed so that they use the maximum performance”, says Julian Rapp. “With an axle load of 12 tonnes, the innovative 100 tonne crane can carry up to 16.9 tonnes of counterweight. That is 75 percent of the maximum ballast of 22.5 tonnes. It is a real highlight and a new record for mobile cranes worldwide. It means it can complete almost all its jobs without additional ballast transport. It is a genuine taxi crane.” Laura Rothmund continues: “This crane provides our customers with maximum flexibility in terms of axle load versions and gross weights.”

The large number of orders received at Bauma demonstrates that the LTM 1100-5.3 is proving popular with our customers. The new crane features all the innovations from recent years, including VarioBallast® - and it is the second crane model with the new LICCON3 control. And of course its boom length and performance are not lacking either. At 62 metres, the telescopic boom is actually two metres longer than the next larger crane, the LTM 1110-5.2. As a result of its lightweight boom, the 12 tonne axle load version, in particular, delivers lifting capacity values for large radii that no other crane can match.

Julian Rapp regards the vehicle width of just 2.55 metres as another highlight of the new 5-axle crane. “It makes the crane extremely flexible, both on the road and on constricted sites. The dimensions of the LTM 1100-5.3 also make it ideal to enter the “Truck cranes” market, which is particularly popular in the USA.”

This article was published in the UpLoad magazine 01 | 2023.