“Ready quickly and really powerful”

The successor to the extremely popular LTM 1130-5.1, of which we built around 1,500, the new crane appears to be doing exactly the same as its predecessor in terms of being a success. Powerful, potentially record-breaking parameters in terms of hoist height, lifting capacity and weight as well as the compact design of the machine have already convinced many of our partners throughout the world of its merits. We watched the all-rounder complete two jobs in Italy and Switzerland.

A blue sign is fixed behind the windscreen with “NIK” written in large letters on it. It sparkles almost as much as the new crane itself. And it is even in the same colour as the crane’s paintwork, the bright white and blue of Italian haulage and crane contractor Cristelli. Nicola Del Santo, who owns the metal sign, sits in his LTM 1150-5.3 and focuses on the tricky hoist. A long support made of 21 tonnes of reinforced concrete is suspended from the mobile crane’s hook. We are on an enormous building site in South Tyrol. Or to be more precise, we are in Vinschgau, almost at the most northerly tip of Italy. Nicola has to position the colossal component at a height of fourteen metres. Not really a problem for the experienced operator and his powerful machine. The contractors here are erecting enormous sheds for an expanding recycling company. Nicola and his Liebherr crane are in charge of the majority of them. He will be working at this site for around two weeks. For some of the even larger concrete supports, he is being ably assisted by Gianluca Romani with an LTM 1100/2. Then the pair of them get to work together. Gianluca manages the company, which was founded in 1976 and is based in Pergine near Trient, with his cousin Romina Cristelli.

“We took delivery of the new crane at the start of the year”, says Nicola, who has been operating cranes, “my passion”, for over thirty years. After working with the machine for several months, he does not believe that anything comes close to his LTM 1150-5.3: “The machine is ideal for this site”, he says. “It has a very practical design and can be repositioned quickly. Despite its weight and lifting capacity class, the crane is really agile. Yesterday, for example, I had to hoist around 25 prefabricated components and I had to reposition the crane several times to do the work. But this new machine enables me to work pretty quickly.” The boom can be telescoped to 66 metres in length and also delivers great reach and massive lifting capacity.

The view is very similar at Cristelli’s head office, where, in addition to a crawler crane they have designed themselves, they also have nine loading and four mobile cranes as well as a range of special machines. The family-run company, which specialises in hoisting, transporting and assembling glass structures, was looking for a larger mobile crane for its fleet and found that the performance of the LTM 1150-5.3 was pretty much perfect: “The crane covers most of the requirements that we need for our customers”, adds Gianluca Romani.

Operating safely even in strong winds

Apart from installing prefabricated concrete components, Nicola also has to erect construction cranes on a regular basis. “The important thing for me was the amended load charts for hoists in a range of wind speeds”, he continues. “They enable me to work safely without any accidents.”

The WindSpeed load charts can be opened using the LICCON control system. Depending on the prevailing wind speed, the program then makes different lifting capacity values available.

“It is often not the maximum lifting capacity that counts”, says Jan Keppler, Product Manager here in Ehingen, “but the ability to operate safely on the site. The tables are extremely helpful for job planning because they enable precise calculations to be completed in advance to determine how critical a hoist will be and show the end customer how important the aspect of safety is. The use of the WindSpeed load charts also mean less downtime on site as we supply load charts for wind speeds of up to 15.6 metres per second.”

Its operator, Thomas Messerli, primarily uses his mobile crane to erect tower cranes. But he has also used it to assemble industrial machinery and an enormous range of prefabricated components. All that is everyday work. However, he tackled a job with a particularly charming backdrop at the beginning of May at a UNESCO world cultural heritage site in the wine-growing region of Lavaux. A rugged landscape with precipitous rock faces, innumerable stone walls and curved terraces on the north-eastern edge of Lake Geneva. Positioned on a steep gradient below a busy road along the bank of the lake, the crane had to remove a pedestrian bridge over a railway. During the dismantling of the structure, which had weakened with age, it had to be ensured, however, that traffic and rail replacement buses could pass the bottleneck caused by the crane which had to be set up on the road. This made it the perfect job for the highly compact LTM 1150-5.3.

“There were a whole twenty centimetres between the passing buses and the maximum slewing platform ballast of 45 tonnes”, says Messerli. Although he was able to extend the VarioBase® support for his Liebherr crane fully on the side towards the load, he had significantly less space towards the road. “Everything went perfectly.” He handled the 18 tonne crossing using a radius of 18 metres and placed it on the low loader waiting at the rear of the crane. The hoists required for the steps and bridge pillars as well as the work platform were a much easier task for the mobile crane operator in these lovely surroundings comprising the lake and terraced vineyards.

Thomas Messerli first operated his new LTM 1150-5.3 last autumn. “Since then I have actually used virtually nothing else. Prior to that I worked with the predecessor, the LTM 1130-5.1 and was always very satisfied with it. Liebherrs are definitely my favourite cranes. Quite simply you know exactly what you have.”

This article was published in the UpLoad magazine 02 | 2022.