Almost there – the two large hydraulic cylinders extended the derrick ballast to a radius of 28.5 metres for positioning the railway bridge. The maximum possible radius is 30 metres.
Almost there – the two large hydraulic cylinders extended the derrick ballast to a radius of 28.5 metres for positioning the railway bridge. The maximum possible radius is 30 metres.

Bridge site in Moudon

Right at the heart of things – Managing director Michael Egger securing the attachment equipment.
Right at the heart of things – Managing director Michael Egger securing the attachment equipment.

The bridge site is Moudon in western Switzerland was a real challenge – extremely restricted space, protected trees and a heavy bridge which had to be positioned over a river with a 180 degree slewing process by the crane with a large radius and therefore also a large suspended ballast radius. The demanding requirements on site therefore created perfect conditions for a stiff practical test for the first use of the new V-frame on the LR 11000. “Without the hydraulically adjustable ballast radius, hoisting the bridge would have been significantly more expensive,” is how Managing Director and crane enthusiast Michael Egger explains the solution he provided for this job. “Firstly, it would have required much more expensive work on the embankment to get closer to the abutments with a crawler crane. And then we would also have required a much longer crane track to complete the bridge immediately in front of the abutment.”

The benefit of the VarioTray – with the central section of the ballast disconnected from the derrick boom, the crawler crane can position its suspended ballast pallet itself.
The benefit of the VarioTray – with the central section of the ballast disconnected from the derrick boom, the crawler crane can position its suspended ballast pallet itself.

Variable ballast radius from 13 to 30 metres creates flexibility

However, the V-frame made this expensive additional work superfluous on this site. The new development from the Liebherr Plant in Ehingen made it possible to reduce the radius of the suspended ballast to just 13 metres once the 380 tonne load had been hoisted. As a result of this small radius, the ballast pallet could be carefully guided past a small row of protected trees during the slewing process. When the railway bridge was placed on its abutments at a radius of 38 metres, the hydraulic ballasting device pressed the 440 tonne derrick pallet at a distance of 28.5 metres. “Another benefit of using the V-frame for jobs,” continues Egger, “is that the derrick ballast pallet has a maximum ground pressure of 150 kilonewtons per square metre thanks to the integral load distributor plates. The ground pressure from a ballast trailer is at least three times higher and therefore often requires expensive work to prepare the ground.”

Clemens Norz
Clemens Norz

Michael Egger has long been convinced by the benefits of a hydraulically adjustable folding frame for the suspended ballast. That is why he discussed this solution when he ordered his LR 11000 with Liebherr at the start of 2017. The design of the V-frame for the LR 1800-1.0 was in full flow at that time and Liebherr unveiled it at the Customer Days in 2018. As a result of Egger’s request, the decision was made to design a similar system for the 1000-tonne crane. Clemens Norz, Designer in the Crawler Cranes department at Liebherr, remembers it well: “Mr Egger had a very clear idea of what he wanted and we were then able to make even the details into reality. The important things for him were a large adjustment range for the ballast radius and the ability to retrofit it to his LR 11000, in other words, a crane we have had in our range for several years. That was a challenge for us. The suspended ballast radius had to be significantly reduced to hold the ballasted pallet without a load on the hook in the air. On the other hand, the maximum ballast radius of 30 metres had to be achieved so that the entire lifting capacity of the crane can be used. The V-frame on the LR 11000 has two joints to achieve this enormous adjustment range from 13 to 30 metres.”

The V-frame on the LR 11000 has two joints to achieve the enormous adjustment range from 13 to 30 metres.

Clemens Norz, Designer, Liebherr-Werk Ehingen GmbH

The design and the structural calculation of the V-frame saw Liebherr enter a whole new world. Norz explains: “We had to recalculate the complete erection concept and the new loads for the crane. Another important point was that the LICCON crane control system enables the V-frame to be adjusted automatically during crane operation so that the crane operator can concentrate on the load. We also came up with a few snazzy details. For example, the available oil volume for the extension cylinders is limited by the capacity of the oil tank. To counter this, we use an extraordinary cylinder design in which the rod volume of the cylinder is used as an additional tank.”

The adjustable ballast allowed the load to be slewed past buildings and obstacles.
The adjustable ballast allowed the load to be slewed past buildings and obstacles.

VarioTray makes auxiliary crane for ballasting superfluous

Another clever feature on Egger’s crawler crane ensured that the job on the bridge site in Moudon was completed quickly – the VarioTray detachable ballast system. The facility to simply unbolt the central section of the suspended ballast means that there is no need for a mobile crane to stack and destack the ballast slabs. “Because of the situation on the site, we would have needed a large crane for this job – we would have lost an enormous amount of time and required a great deal of space,” says Egger. “In most cases, our LR 11000 can position the derrick ballast pallet, or at least the outer section, itself since the central section of the ballast remains on the crane and therefore only around 300 to 350 tonnes have to be moved.”

We need your consent This YouTube video is provided by Google*. If you load the video, your data - including your IP address - is transmitted to Google and may be stored and processed by Google inter alia in the USA. We have no influence over further data processing by Google. By clicking on "Accept", you consent to the transmission of data to Google for this video in accordance with Art. 6 (1) (a) GDPR and at the same time expressly consent to the transfer of data to the USA in accordance with Art. 49 (1) (a) GDPR. If you no longer wish to consent to each YouTube video individually in the future and wish to be able to load the videos without this blocker, you can also select "Always accept YouTube" and thereby consent to the associated data transmissions and transfers to Google and to the USA for all other YouTube videos which you open on our website in the future. Please note that, in the opinion of the European Court of Justice, there does not currently exist an adequate level of data protection in line with EU standards in the USA, and at present we cannot provide suitable safeguards to protect your data and offset this shortcoming. Possible risks to you of data transfer to the USA are that access by state authorities cannot be excluded and that your data could be processed for reasons of national security, criminal prosecution or for other purposes in the public interest of the USA, possibly without you being informed separately and without enforceable rights and effective means of redress being available to you. You can withdraw consent that you have given at any time with future effect via the settings. For further information, please see our Data Protection Declaration and Google's Privacy Policy. *Google Ireland Limited, Gordon House, Barrow Street, Dublin 4, Irland; Mutterunternehmen: Google LLC, 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway, Mountain View, CA 94043, USA
The light tower will be used as a radio transmitter.
The light tower will be used as a radio transmitter.

Lightship becomes event location

Just a few weeks later, the V-frame was able to show its strengths yet again when it hoisted a 550 tonne ship onto the banks of the River Rhine in Basel on the same crawler crane. The adjustable ballast system was used for this job because there were buildings and obstacles in the way of the derrick ballast during the slewing process.

"Gannet", a 42 metre lightship will be used as an event location for up to 300 people in an event and culture park in the port district of Basel. Before its decommissioning in 2010 it showed seafarers the way for around 70 years near South Rock in Ireland. In spring it was towed over the English Channel to the River Rhine via Rotterdam. The light tower had to be dismantled so that it would pass under bridges. Once it arrived at its new location, the light tower was reinstalled on the ship to be used as a radio transmitter.

Customer proximity literally – Software Developer Matthias Ströbele, Service Technician Albert Götz and Machine Tester Dominik Gemeinder (from left to right) monitored the first job completed by the V-frame closely.
Customer proximity literally – Software Developer Matthias Ströbele, Service Technician Albert Götz and Machine Tester Dominik Gemeinder (from left to right) monitored the first job completed by the V-frame closely.

Support from the manufacturer

Liebherr monitored and supervised the first use of the innovative V-frame technology closely from the very outset. During the hoist on site, three members of the team from the Ehingen crane factory where present to provide support, just in case. A service technician, a machine tester and the programmer of the software for the hydraulically adjustable folding frame were involved in the whole process from setting up the crane to positioning the bridge in Moudon. But that's not all: “First of all, we used an identical crane on our test site in Ehingen with the same set-up configuration, the parameters from the Swiss site and of course a load of the same weight to simulate this hoist”, says Dominik Gemeinder, who works at the acceptance testing site for crawler cranes in Ehingen.

Crane operator Michael Egger is a person who appreciates this service and customer proximity from Liebherr. “We had never worked with the V-frame before and it was really great that Ehingen offered us this superb support for its first job. Perfect.”

This article was published in the UpLoad magazine 02 | 2019.

This may be of interest to you

Download

You can download the customer magazines here in PDF format.

Customer Magazines

Product area mobile and crawler cranes

Here you can find the range of Liebherr mobile and crawler cranes.

Mobile and crawler cranes

Our Magazine

Discover further extraordinary stories about mobile and crawler cranes.

Our Magazine