A Grove crane has completed its final lifts on the MHP Arena soccer stadium, home of Bundesliga team VfB Stuttgart.
The AU$220 million reconstruction has been taking place since 2018, with the erection of temporary stands allowing the stadium to remain in operation during the redevelopment. German crane hire company, Gräser Eschbach, deployed its 250-tonne Grove GMK5250XL-1 to complete a range of lifts that required a long reach to just under the stadium’s roof.
Restrictions on the project meant structural projects needed to be lifted to a height of 30m, while space confinements meant that the crane could only be configured with 50 tonnes of counterweight to maintain normal vehicle width. For the 250-tonne Grove, however, these restrictions were easily overcome thanks to the crane’s best-in-show 78.5m telescopic boom that allowed Gräser Eschbach to lift 3.5-tonne concrete parts to the top of the stadium at a radius of 54m, and place 17-tonne stair sections at a radius of 26m.
For Gräser Eschbach’s operator, Jens Seim, the additional features of the Grove GMK5250XL-1 made the task “really simple”.
“We had to avoid any risk of damaging the pitch, so we could only extend the outriggers on one side to three-quarters of their full length,” he said. “However, because of MAXbase, Grove’s variable outrigger positioning system, we were able to maintain maximum capacity even with an asymmetric outrigger positioning. We also used MAXbase to enhance operational security while telescoping those 3.5-tonne sections.”
Further enhancing operations for the German crane hire company is the GMK5250XL-1’s single-engine design that utilises fuel-saving technology that, according to the manufacturer, can lower costs by up to 30 per cent compared to previous Grove five-axle cranes.
The redevelopment of the MHP Arena is expected to have a stadium capacity of around 60,000 spectators.
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