With only one 800-tonne class crane on the east coast, Tutt Bryant Heavy Lift & Shift (TBHLS) recently took delivery of a third Sany SCC8000A to further enhance its logistical and lifting capabilities. Following its commissioning, the 800t capacity lattice boom crawler was deployed to the Sydney Gateway Project for clients John Holland and Seymour Whyte. TBHLS’s Supervisor, Kyle Greenwood, elaborates on what sets this crane and the Sany product apart from others in the market.
A $2.6 billion project, five steel bridge beams, and a goal to reduce travel by 40 minutes from Western Sydney to the airport.
That is what awaits the latest addition to the fleet of Tutt Bryant’s Heavy Lift & Shift division’s (TBHLS): the Sany SCC8000A crawler crane.
Kyle acknowledges the quality of the product, stating that the technology is “right up there” in the market.
“I was working on a project in Townsville just a couple of months ago with a 400-tonne Sany, which is a 2014 model. The difference between the quality and the technology in that model and the 800 is massive. Sany’s technology is well and truly on par with the products you get in a German or American crane,” said Kyle.
The SCC8000A is the third 800-tonne crawler TBHLS has received from Sany, with the other two operating out of depots in Queensland and Western Australia. Such is their satisfaction with the quality of the product the WA depot is about to receive a fourth, further enhancing TBHLS’ logistical and lifting capabilities across the country.
And its satisfaction is not unfounded. Founded in 1986, the Chinese company has risen to become one of the largest construction equipment manufacturers globally, ranking fourth in the KHL International Construction Yellow Table for 2022 and second for crane manufacturers.
Appointing Tutt Bryant as its national distributor for all crane products in Australia back in February 2021, Sany’s machines regularly feature in TBHLS projects, with the latest being the Sydney Gateway project.
Being delivered by John Holland and Seymour Whyte, the $2.6 billion project is designed to cut 40 minutes of travelling time for motorists coming from Sydney’s west and ease transport congestion around Sydney Airport. It will feature five steel bridge beams lifted by the new Sany. One of the first lifts the crane will perform weighs in at 197 tonnes with a 56-metre radius, showcasing its lifting strength instantly.
Featuring a Cummins QSX15 engine and a maximum lifting moment of 12016 tonne-metres, Sany’s 800-tonne crawler crane’s safety measurements are also of note, featuring a completely automated load moment indicator, boom angle limit and closed-circuit monitoring system.
Commencing his role at TBHLS in April 2018, Kyle has been working in engineering and construction for 23 years. As the Heavy Lift & Shift Supervisor, he has seen more than his fair share of heavy lift cranes and is very complimentary of the technical details in the new crawler crane, and says he was “really happy” with the crane’s “precision” in its initial tests.
“We put the crane together for the first time for the CraneSafe inspection. We completed some test lifts with a calibrated load cell in the line and the weights were reading spot on straight away.
“The radius indicators were also reading perfectly: as an example, we set the stinger to 18.3 metres on the computer. I went out and measured it and it was 18 metres, 200 mill and 90 millimeters,” said Kyle.
Also of note is a computer system which “tells you everything”, Kyle says, especially when it comes to tray height and weight, individual load cells on each side of the derrick and general information regarding overloading, overwork and unsafe lifts.
“You can keep your weight even between your pennant bars. It gives you absolutely everything now. You get a stinger radius, a derrick radius, a main boom radius, auxiliary radius, hook heights,” he continues.
“If you’re lifting something at a set position and you know you need to come up two metres, you can set it so you can then just come up two meters and walk it out or whatever you need to do.”
Kyle is also impressed with the Sany camera system, saying that “you can see everything,” thanks to the 12 cameras capturing surrounding video of the machine at all times.
“All the winches possess their own individual camera and you’ve got a head camera so you can see straight down the rope line and see the load to make sure you’re directly over what you’re lifting. This will be a big help in making sure we get it right, every time,” he said.
One of the standout features of the SCC8000A is its flexibility relating to its boom. Displaying 99 metres of main boom on the standard crane, 111 metres of main boom with super lift attached, 123 metres of mixed (heavy and light) main boom in standard crane and 147 metres of mixed main boom and full super lift, the crane also comes with 168 metres of power boom which includes 3.5 metre sections which are fitted.
Also featuring a superpower boom made up of two booms side by side for a certain portion of the main boom, TBHLS purchased the crane with a short fixed – wind jib which can be used to install wind turbines weighing over 100 tonnes at a hook height of 175 metres.
It has a full luffing fly of 96 metres as well which can lift up to 68 tonnes at 194 metres hook height.
“We bought this in HBD mode, which is 42 metres of derrick, 390 tonnes of super lift weight and it comes with 108 metres of main boom,” says Kyle. “We purchased the full kit for its sister crane in Queensland, so it has the power boom, which is the twin boom, the luff and fly, the fixed fly, the wind tip.
“Everything is interchangeable between the cranes, so, if we get a job with the luff and fly, we can transport the additional components from the Queensland crane and place them on this one.”
Completing its Cranesafe certification, finishing its commissioning and receiving its branded signwriting at the start of June in Newcastle, the crane is now going to be transported to the Sydney Gateway project. Speaking to the logistics of providing support vehicles and extra paraphernalia in order to move the crane from Newcastle to the city suburbs of Sydney, Kyle says it’s “a lot”, but is still manageable.
“All up, it’s about 63 or 64 loads,” he says. “To transport it, we split the car body down to bring it under 100 tonnes, whilst it also needs to be under four metres high.
“So, we’ve got to take the live mast out and strip it right back. With the live mast out of everything, it’s 39.90 so we can get it under that live mast,” he said.
“If we needed to, we could split the top, the super structure from the car body and get it even lower, but a lot of time is invested in that; generally, around three-to-four hours.”
With so much assembly required for the 800-tonner and performing a series of lifts so close to the airport, the Sydney Gateway lifts present a logistical challenge for the team at TBHLS – a scenario they have more than prepared for, says Kyle.
Outlining the problems, Kyle notes the difficulties of the time constraints they need to operate within.
“We have a 11:00 PM to 4.30 AM window to complete the lift which sounds like plenty of time, but during daytime hours, outside of 5:00 AM and before 11:00 PM we have to be under 19 metres from the position of the crane pad to the highest point on the crane,” he says.
“So, we’ve got to lay the 72 metres of boom down. Then we’ve got to disconnect the stinger and then roll the derrick over every shift, which is about 75 minutes to lay it over and then about 90 minutes to stand it back up.”
“We were aware of the time constraints and height requirements, however, and we’ve completed time trials to ensure we could get the job done in time,” he continues.
“When we quoted the job, the time trials were done on the other crane in Queensland, and then we had an estimate of what we could do it in. Then, once this turned up, we’ve run the same trial five or six times to make sure we’re consistently getting the same figures.”
Responsible for the hiring of cranes and provision of haulage and specialised transport, including planning and support services to meet lift and shift requirements, the TBHLS fleet contains an array of heavy-lifting machines, including crawler cranes, mobile cranes, hydraulic jacking systems and SPMTs.
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