In September, huge modules were installed on the roof of a children’s clinic in Heilbronn to create new classrooms for the hospital. However, the crane contractor Wiesbauer, which entrusted its brand-new LTM 1650-8.1 with this task, faced major challenges not so much in the lifting work as in the preliminary planning. “We had to pass through quite a narrow section on the access road to the site,” reports Christoph Kriegel, who coordinated the operation as project manager for Wiesbauer. A gatehouse bordered the entrance on one side and a listed wall on the other. The 8-axle crane had to pass the entrance while travelling around bends. “No other crane in this load capacity class is built compactly enough to get through here,” says Kriegel, adding: “We couldn’t set up the crane on the other side of the hospital wing due to shafts and ducts underground.”
The construction modules, which are up to 17 metres long and 4.80 metres wide, could not be transported to the site on the road transport vehicles due to this bottleneck at the site access road. A small mobile crane at the entrance therefore took over the handling of the bulky loads onto a lorry, which shuttled inside and transported the prefabricated elements to the LTM 1650-8.1.
No space for luffing jib mounting
Only with the long version of the telescopic boom was it possible to lift the construction modules onto the hospital roof in Heilbronn. “We would have needed a luffing jib for the short telescopic mast, but we didn’t have enough space to set it up here,” explained project manager Kriegel. At the beginning of the planning phase, there was also a requirement that the mobile crane should be able to retract its boom when a rescue helicopter approaches the hospital’s heliport, which is just 100 metres away. However, the approach and departure direction for the helicopters was then changed without further ado so that the crane work could also continue during the helicopter operations.
For crane operator Ralf Hoffmann, his fourth job with the brand-new mobile crane was routine right from the start. “I’m already familiar with working with the 700-tonne truck because I also drove our first LTM 1650-8.1. The road trip with the large telescopic boom, for which we had a special permit with a total weight of 106 tonnes, was a bit top-heavy, but it went well. Accessing the site, on the other hand, was actually a bit tricky.” Hoffmann has already used the new vehicle to dismantle a bridge and lift a 100-tonne generator. After building the school on the roof of the clinic, the team went straight on to Ludwigshafen to lift parts of a railway bridge.
Wiesbauer GmbH & Co. KG, based in Bietigheim-Bissingen, is one of the leading full-service providers in the field of heavy-duty logistics with around 160 employees and around 70 mobile, mobile tower folding and crawler cranes up to the 1,000-tonne class. In addition to its main business area of crane services, the company also offers heavy haulage and industrial assembly services. Wiesbauer’s cranes are mainly from Liebherr.
