Adelaide, South Australia
Aztec Analysis was judged the runner up in the CICA Awards major lifts category, for lifts over 130t. The company was contracted by Gadaleta Steel Fabrications to engineer the removal and replacement of a 30m section from the top of a 70m tall stove chimney stack at a blast furnace owned by OneSteel.

Originally, the plan for the project had been to remove the stack in two pieces, in May 2011, as part of a six week major repair project. However, the job needed to be postponed, allowing only a 48hr window during a site shutdown in July 2012. This meant the stack would need to be removed in one piece.

Aztec planned the job using two cranes from Max Cranes Equipment Hire, of Port Augusta, South Australia. The main crane, a 400t LTM1400-7.1, was the largest crane available for the job. It was assisted by a 250t LTM1250-6.1.

The LTM1400, configured with a 36m guyed main boom and 42m luffing fly, could only be set up to the north of the site crossing railway lines and tightly positioned between existing structures. The 30m piece, weighing approximately 30t, had suffered significant deterioration since its installation in 1965. Once the initial lift was made, the job would have to be completed in one go, including slewing over other site structures.

Hobart, Tasmania
VEC Thiess was highly commended by the judges of the CICA awards major lift category. The joint venture was commissioned to install a 166m bridge over the Jordan River as part of the longest road project in Tasmania’s history.

The original plan for the site was to install a standard Super T beam bridge. However, in 2009, the site had been identified as an Aboriginal heritage site. The original design would have impacted the heritage site.

A new design was developed to allow the bridge to be built without disturbing the site. It was subjected to the most rigorous heritage approval process ever applied in Tasmania.

To pass over the site without disturbing it, VEC Thiess planned to install a 70m long steel bridge span over the critical heritage area. This was the longest single span ever to be launched in Australia. This 4m wide, 3.2m deep, 70m long steel box girder weighed 234t. Three other spans used 32m long and 1,500mm deep concrete Super T beams. The girders were assembled on site at ground level, reducing work at height. A 50m long launching nose was attached to one of the girders. It was also fitted with 10t of steel rails, on the top of the girder.

Two cranes were mobilsed at either side of the heritage site, a 350t Liebherr crawler and 450t Grove all terrain. The first girder was lifted twice, and then launched over the gap. It was used as a plaform for the following three girders, launching them across the first girder using the rails on top, allowing them to be rolled over to the opposite pier.

Newcastle, New South Wales
John Holland group won the CICA major lift (over 130t) award for its work lifting a 157t coal conveyor over a critical road corridor, as part of the Newcastle Coal Infrastructure Group Stage 2 project, which aims to improve coal output at Kooragang by 23m tonnes a year.

As well as working over a busy road, the lift took place in a constricted work area, with poor ground conditions and adverse weather. A 280t Liebherr LR1280 crawler was configured with superlift to take 95.19t of the load, assisted by a 300t LR1300, taking 79.73t of the load.

John Holland completed the job, without injury or damage, within very tight schedules.

Sydney, New South Wales
Gillespies took the CICA award for lifts under 130t for its work installing a new power pack for the Spit Bridge in Sydney.

As part of an extensive upgrade of the lift mechanism on the Spit Bridge, a new power pack had to be positioned during a one hour overnight closure of the main arterial road to the Northern Beaches of Sydney.

The bridge deck offered poor bearing pressure, and bridge support beams measured only 4.318m centre-to-centre. A limited work area was available prior to the road closure.

Gillespies used a Liebherr LTM1060-2 working on half outriggers with 12t of counterweight and one counterweight truck.