The planned six-lane replacement of Germany’s second longest steel road bridge will be a mammoth project – and 18 Liebherr cranes are currently making it a reality.
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Work is currently underway to install bridge piers for the new eastern half of Germany’s Rader High Bridge, expected to open by 2026, and 18 Liebherr cranes provided by rental company Friedrich Niemann are on the job.
Five fast-erecting cranes – two 65 K.1s and three 81 K.1s – are currently at work assisting with the foundations of the new bridge, working with their towers retracted as they slew under the existing structure.
The new bridge piers are being built with the help of six 125 EC-B and seven 150 EC-B flat-top cranes, each assembled in a free-standing position on crosses and foundation anchors; with some sitting on foundations of concrete under water.
The flat-top cranes are working with a hook height of between 49m and 68m, with Liebherr Tower Crane Centre providing the hydraulic climbing equipment.
A 250 tonne LR 1250 crawler crane positioned on a floating platform was used to assemble the first 125 EC-B that arrived on site at the end of 2023, positioned on the first pier’s pile cap in the waters of Lake Borgstedt.
Three more125 EC-B cranes were assembled using the LR 1250 on its floating platform, initially assembled at a height of 30m before using hydraulic climbing equipment to reach a final hook height of 50m, some 15m above the height of the roadway.
A 150 EC-B 8 Litronic was moved from its initial work site on land to be reassembled in the water in June this year –transported, disassembled and put back together by a 220-tonne crawler crane on a floating platform.
Once assembled, the 150 EC-B 8 Litronic climbed to a hook height of approximately 50m and reached a jib length of 40m. The crane has the capacity to lift up to eight tonnes.
Measuring almost 1.5 kilometres and spanning the freshwater Kiel Canal, the Rader High Bridge forms part of Germany’s A7 Federal Motorway, a high-speed artery linking Hamburg to Denmark.
Originally built in 1972, the bridge is currently undergoing a project to replace the current four-lane structure with two three-lane bridges, a wider structure to accommodate increasing volumes of traffic.
The project commenced in 2023 and is expected to end in 2031 once the existing bridge is demolished and the two new structures are in place.