Demag AC 1000-9 lifts TBM in Mumbai

5 January 2021

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Indian crane service provider Steel Carriers used its Demag AC 1000-9 to lift a tunnel-boring machine (TBM) at the Bombay Central Metro Station site in Mumbai.

The job was to lift a 100t TBM at a radius of 20m from below the ground and bring it up to the surface. Steel Carriers opted for the all terrain because setting up a crawler crane under the tight space conditions of the job site would have taken significantly more time.

In order to avoid the Indian metropolis’ daily traffic, Steel Carriers took the all terrain and the trailers carrying its equipment from its workshop in Mumbai to the site late at night, with four trips every night. “The reason we had to split up the transport that way was that space at the work site was really tight, so having the crane come in with all its equipment at once was simply impossible,” said Sunil Makad, owner of Steel Carriers.

The load’s weight and the lift’s large radius, meant that the all terrain had to be equipped with its full 228t counterweight for a boom length of 30m. The crane was set up by four people—the crane operator, a supervisor, and two assembly technicians—in only one day.

In addition to the powerful crane required for the job, staying on schedule was one of the crucial factors in the project, as the deadline for completing the new metro line was inexorably approaching and left no room whatsoever for delays. “During the lift, the load on the crane hook and the working area itself were not in the operator’s field of view. In other words, he was completely dependent on the instructions provided by his co-workers through their walkie-talkies, as well as on their hand signals,” Makad said. Despite these challenges, the expertise and coordination of the Steel Carriers team made it possible to carry out the lift with utmost precision.