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Unique crane removed as Crown Sydney tops out

Construction works on Crown Sydney has reached a new milestone following the removal of Marr Contracting’s 390D crane with a unique crane recovery system.

The crane had been working on Crown Sydney for the past 27 months and was removed following the topping out of the project.

Crown Sydney is the city’s first luxury resort in Barangaroo and will include 349 hotel rooms and suites, luxury residential apartments, 14 restaurants and bars, retail outlets and pool and spa facilities.

It’s location on the Barangaroo foreshore combined with its architectural design posed a number of significant construction challenges.

Due to its location in a congested CBD waterfront space between the Harbour to the west and another construction site to the east, and the complex sculptural design which required a lot of heavy lifting to build the structural elements for the low-rise gaming floor and 75-storey high-rise, the project required a unique craneage solution.

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Marr’s developed a custom super high-speed 390D crane with a high capacity winch system and a 46-metre boom for high-rise construction.

The crane allowed lifts of up to 25 tonnes from ground level to the top of the tower in a little more than a minute, with the ability to work in the high winds prevalent at this elevation, which was one of the biggest challenges facing the construction team.

Marr’s Managing Director Simon Marr said having a long-standing working relationship with Crown’s construction partners, allowed the company to help come up with a solution.

“When they originally contacted us, their primary concern was borne out of a previous experience where the craneage solution wasn’t able to meet the demands of working at height in a high wind area like Barangaroo,” Marr said.

“The brief, in short, was to come up with a solution that would speed up the construction program without compromising on safety or quality.”

Lower down, the Marr 2480D heavy lift luffing crane, which is capable of lifting up to 330 tonnes in a single lift, lifted large steel reinforcing beams weighing up to 100 tonnes in a congested CBD site.

The crane lifted the 100-tonne beams and 50-tonne columns that formed the base of the structure in single lifts, allowing the project to reduce its build time, offer a safer method of construction and reduce complexity on site.

Crown Sydney also adopted a top-down construction methodology which allowed two work fronts, with the M2480D employed to lift heavy general machinery (such as excavators and drills rigs), saving the cost of crawler cranes and allowing excavation work to be taken off critical path. It also provided options for how to deal with any unexpected lifting requirements during the excavation works.

Marr’s team also designed a three-beam internal climbing system to suit the jump-form construction methodology used on the project, which reduced the number of climbs and disruption to the project by approximately 30 per cent with a typical 20-metre climbing cycle completed within two hours.

An additional M390D and M440D were also on-site to assist with the construction of the gaming floor and hotel. Both crane solutions were designed to fit in with Crown’s construction methodology.

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