With investment put at approximately $25 billion, the renewable energy sector, in particular the construction of wind farms, continues to provide important opportunities for the crane sector.
Tadano have three models in its Demag crawler range, ideally suited to the installation and maintenance of wind farms, heavy duty lifting in construction and infrastructure projects as well as the resources sector. The models are the CC3800-1, CC6800-1 and CC2800-2 with the NT option. Howard Dean is the Heavy Lift sales manager for Tadano Oceania. Dean has 17 years of experience in the crane sector, mostly involving Demag cranes. He knows Demag crawlers inside and out.
“I started out as an apprentice heavy duty plant mechanic working on Kato, Tadano, Sumitomo, Kobelco and Demag cranes before specialising in crawler cranes. It has been a long journey to sales. I was promoted to State Maintenance Manager with my previous company.
“I then moved to monadelphous heavy lift where I was national service manager for six years. From there I moved to Terex as a product engineer specialising in Demag products, and when Demag was bought by Tadano, I was happy to move across with the product.
“The crawler models most suited to wind farm work are the CC3800-1, a 650t capacity crane, CC6800-1 which has a capacity of 1250t and CC2800-2 a 600t capacity (with narrow track option) crawler crane,” said Dean.
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Typically, CC6800-1s have been imported into Australia for specific lifting applications by heavy lift global crane companies and then sent back into world operations upon job completion.
The CC6800-1 is versatile in its application and used for refinery work when completing upgrades or maintenance and is also used in mining and construction for upgrades and maintenance work. It is well suited to the infrastructure sector typically for bridge lifting work and assembly of sporting stadiums. Other applications seen across Europe include marine unloading large modules from ships and barges.
The CC 6800-1 sets the standard in its class. The crane can be configured in heavy main boom lengths up to 96m, long main boom lengths up to 114m, luffing fly combinations with main boom up to 96m and 108m of luffing fly giving a total boom system of 204m. Configurations of long boom with Superlift offer up to 156m and long main boom up to 150m, coupled with a rear mast and fixed fly lengths of 33m give a total boom system of 183m. With this configuration, lifts of 98t are possible at 27m radius with under hook heights of 180m.
The CC3800-1 boasts a maximum wind farm configuration of 165m main boom, plus fixed fly with lengths of 12m and 18m, offering a max system length of 183m. This system comprises the Boom Booster sections which are 3.5m wide opposed to standard sections at 3m wide. The Boom Booster configurations give lifting capacity increases up to 30 per cent. The strong load charts of this crane coupled with Boom Booster configurations places it well and truly in the 750t class but with the benefit of having a smaller footprint and ease of assembly when compared to other machines in this range.
“In Europe the CC3800-1 has been erecting wind turbines to a height of 166m. The intelligent design of the machine allows for ease of transport with features such as removable hoist winches with the A Frame in place, allowing a transport weight reduction of 14t. The A Frame is also easily removable by means of hydraulic cylinders actuated by remote control, saving an additional 16t,” said Dean.
“With both hoist winches removed and the A Frame removed, transport weight of the superstructure and car body is down to 66.3t, which is impressive for a machine in this class.
Versatility of the machine in terms of possible configurations is exceptionally high by means of variable rear mast lengths. Rear mast lengths of 36m, 39.5m and 42m allow for greatly improved load charts and extreme versatility in available configurations,” he said.
The Split Tray for the Superlift counterweight is an innovative and valuable time saving feature. The design means that a Superlift tray assembled with 325t is capable, if required, of lifting a long boom combination off the ground. Once the boom is in the air and within working range, the centre counterweight stack can be removed offering up to 125t of working Superlift counterweight, which is normally more than enough for crane operations. This means the Superlift counterweight no longer needs to be disassembled for lifting operation and reassembled for erection or demobilisation giving huge time saving benefits. This system is also offered on the new CC2800-2.
The cabin has been completely redesigned which now offers extra width and a second seat for training as well as fantastic vision. The crane has been designed with safety in mind. Fall protection on boom sections is offered as standard, as well as walkways on the crawler carrier and upper deck.
“In the US one of our customers used the CC6800 to install wind turbines and configured the machine in LH+LF3_S3 (119m of main boom only with 15m of fixed fly) which allows 120t at a height of 120m. The beauty of this configuration is it is less complicated, not requiring a rear mast or Superlift tray to complete the works, meaning assembly of the crane was exceptionally fast,” said Dean.
According to Dean, the CC6800-1 is designed for ease of transportation and assembly on site.
“The beauty of the CC6800-1 is that it is a large capacity crawler but has been designed to be assembled in a traditional format such as the CC2800. One track weighs 69t and is transported in a single piece. The superstructure can be reduced to 54t with the hoists and A frame removed, or transported at 99t with all hoists and A frame in place.
“The crawler carrier (centre pot and four beams) weighs in at a very transportable 48t. Heavy boom sections are a maximum length of 12m long and 3.5m wide which are designed so smaller sections from the luffer and fixed fly can be stored inside one another,” he said.
The crane’s Quadro-Drive on-demand system improves operating stability and allows the base to move and spin under load, increasing on-site lifting versatility. Its benefit is a high torque drive system which enables moving precisely with a load or when traversing rough or uneven road surfaces, as well as better ability to manoeuvre over inclines or declines.
The IC-1 system is offered on all new Demag machines. The CC3800-1, CC6800-1 and CC2800-2 w/wo NT option machines have twin touch screens and allow the operator to have all vital crane information clearly shown on the right-hand screen. On the left-hand screen, information such as joystick configuration, engine data and Superlift information can be shown.
“The big benefit of this system is that it allows the operator the ability to continually monitor vital crane information on the right-hand screen without having to change screens in order to make setup changes. During Superlift operation, the left-hand screen can be set to show all Superlift functions and the right-hand screen to show all main crane information. This gives the operator a complete oversight over the entire lifting operation, allowing the focus to be entirely on the lift,” said Dean.
Dean says that Tadano is focused on product support, service and parts availability.
“Tadano offers a dedicated product support team throughout Australia which consists of technical specialists on all Tadano products. They are available to answer any and all questions on our models as well as provide operator familiarisation, technical familiarisation and breakdown support.
“No other company in Australia offers such a comprehensive, dedicated and specialist team. We also have service departments in Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne and Perth with service agents in Adelaide, Northern Territory and New Zealand and all are available to attend breakdowns, carry out overhauls or for general servicing requirements,” he said.