Raising their game

This year, the new Parc Olympique Lyonnais stadium will play host to a wealth of games taking place during the UEFA Euro 2016 football tournament.

The building, which is located in the French municipality of Décines- Charpieu, replaces the club's former stadium, Stade de Gerland, and will also serve as a leisure centre, public space, shops, restaurants, hotels and football museum

With the major structural work and seating areas already complete, the next phase of construction, including the installation of the steel structure that supports the enclosure roof was on the agenda. To complete this project, Sarens was enlisted to carry the significant load, and it opted for its its 650t Terex Superlift 3800 crawler. The company's crews prepped the high-capacity crane for the more than 800km trip from its location in Cherbourg, northern France, to the stadium.

Within one week, 46 trucks carried the crane's body, boom segments, structure and counterweight for operation inside the stadium.

Sam Voeten, project manager for Sarens, explains: "For this project, we needed high capacity at a short radius as well as high lifting capabilities when working at an extended radius without reconfiguring the boom.

"We needed a total of 540t of counterweight for the structure, central ballast and superlift tray to perform all lifts."

"The access tunnels for truck deliveries were only 5m high by 4m wide, so the narrow transport dimensions of the Superlift 3800 crane helped us to get components inside the stadium for rigging."

On site, a crew assembled the crane and superlift structure in four days. The crane configuration for the Parc Olympique Lyonnais project specified 60m of main boom with a 42m fly jib and 36m of superlift mast.

The 3800's hydraulic pinning feature enabled Sarens' rigging crew to efficiently assemble the crawler and main boom, while the quick connection system enabled the superstructure to be installed within 15 minutes.

Guntram Jakobs, manager of product marketing at Terex Cranes says that crane rigging is "not only about speed" but also operator aid. The company's fall protection system is said to provide safety when rigging the boom sections of the Superlift 3800 lattice boom crawler crane. This includes a vest harness equipped with a shock absorber and provides secured, tethered walking and working on the main boom.

With the new Parc Olympique Lyonnais stadium featuring an enclosed roof, the Sarens team were charged with placing preassembled segments of the steel structure supporting the roof. These smaller exterior flanges were around one third of this size, each weighing 50t. Roof supports were placed around the entire circumference of the stadium, but there was limited room for the crane to do its work. "Management of the free space inside the stadium was a challenge.

"Terex helped us by studying the specific parking conditions for this project and corresponding maximum permissible wind speeds at the various working radii," says Voeten. For the project, the Superlift 3800 crawler crane's structure was equipped with 165t of counterweight, 50t of central ballast and 325t on the variable position superlift tray. This offered working ranges from 11 to 19 m.

According to the manufacturer, the crane "quickly and efficiently" hoisted and placed the large 150-tonne inner structure segments. Working at a radius of 43m, the crane hoisted the structure to its drop-off height of 45m.

And with limited space for positioning the crane, crews worked at up to an 81m radius to position the smaller 50-tonne assemblies. Such exterior sections were also positioned at 45 m (148 ft) heights for final assembly.

"The Terex Superlift 3800 with Vario superlift is a modern, powerful and versatile crane that was the right choice for us to get the job done quickly and efficiently," concludes Voeten