LR 1800-1.0 installs Berlin bridge
24 November 2020Crane and heavy haulage contractor MaxiKraft used its new 800t Liebherr LR 1800-1.0 crawler crane to install a new pedestrian and cycle bridge over the Berlin-Spandau Ship Canal, connecting the previously divided neighbourhoods of Moabit and Mitte.
“What belongs together will grow together” was how Willy Brandt, the former German Chancellor, described the fall of the Berlin Wall on 9 November 1989. Over 30 years later, the process of a country still growing together continues.
Built in Deggendorf and transported 1,600 km by barge using inland waterways to get it from Bavaria to Berlin. The 78m bridge was named Golda-Meir-Steg, after the former Israeli Prime Minister. The LR 1800-1.0 crawler crane hoisted the new bridge off the barge before it was turned into position using rope and man power before being lowered carefully by the crane.
With limited space on site for the crane and equipment, the MaxiKraft team arranged for the various components had to be delivered in precisely the correct order that they were required to set up the crane.
Equipped with a 66m main boom, derrick system and suspended ballast with the V-frame, 70t of central ballast, 170t of slewing platform ballast and 380t of derrick ballast, the LR 1800-1.0 had to be moved 10m back from the originally planned site so as not to damage or displace the pile foundations used to secure the bank of the canal and to build the abutment for the bridge. The 195t bridge was lifted at 48m rather than the originally planned 38m.
The V frame, a hydraulically adjustable ballast system enables adjustment distances with a ballast radius of between 14m and 23m, was handy for this job. The derrick ballast had to be extended to the maximum radius of 23m to install the bridge.
