Heavy lifting and logistics specialist Sarens has successfully installed a 700-tonne bridge over a railway line in Luxembourg, Schieren.
Using its full range of engineering nous, the Belgian company deployed a range of SPMTs, climbing systems, and its LR11000 crane to complete the job for Techno Métal Industrie.
The main challenge the Sarens team faced was that the 700-tonne bridge needed to be installed over the railroad during a closure without ever entering the railway area. Further complicating matters was that no rails or overhead lines could be removed, which meant that every piece of equipment needed to be transported and lifted from the sides of the railway.
To perform this lift, Sarens used 32 axle lines SPMTs and the Sarens CS250 climbing system on one side of the railway, and an LR11000 crawler crane and CS250 system on the other side.
The LR11000 was configured with a 66m main boom and 430-tonnes of superlift. It took five days to build and was on-site for less than two weeks, including assembly and disassembly.
Completing the operation:
To offload and transport the bridge, the crew first used two SPMTs to bring the bridge within range of the LR11000. Second, 25 per cent of the weight was transferred to the crane, one set of SPMTs was removed, and the bridge was driven closer to the crane. Third, the SPMT was repositioned so that both the crane and SPMT had 50 per cent of the weight. Next, the bridge was moved even closer to the crane, towards its final location. At the final location, the bridge was set down onto the CS250 climbing system and jacked down to the correct height. This final step was achieved over two weekends.
To lift the bridge, the crew started with 177 tonnes at 53.5m, booming up to 36.5m, where the load in the hook was increased to 352 tonnes at 36.5m by repositioning the SPMTs. Finally, the crane crawled backwards and boomed up to set down the bridge at a radius of 18m.
Throughout the installation, the SPMTs below the bridge had to be repositioned several times to their next support location. Every support location was carefully selected to guarantee that the load on the crane and SPMT remained below capacity.
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