German lifting and transport specialist Schmidbauer provided three Liebherr mobile cranes to replace five double-girder overhead travelling cranes at Liebherr’s mobile and crawler crane manufacturing plant in Ehingen, Germany.
The mobile cranes were an LTC 1045-3.1, provided by Schmidbauer’s Memmingen branch, an LTM 1110-5.1 and an LTM 1130-5.1, which came from Rieger & Moser, part of the Schmidbauer Group, based in Ulm.
Liebherr scheduled the overhead crane renewal to take place during its company holiday at the beginning of August to minimise disruption. This meant that the timeframe was tight for the dismantling and reassembly.
The overhead cranes have a span of 28 metres and lifting capacities between 40 and 63 tonnes. The dead weight of the heaviest overhead crane, the 63-tonne capacity crane, is 41 tonnes and it has two hoists.
Aside from the tight turnaround time, there were multiple challenges to overcome. These included the complex logistics of transporting the large bridge crane components to and from the site, plus limited space in the production hall.
In particular, there was only a few centimetres of clearance between the roller head of the overhead crane jib and the hall’s ceiling. For this reason a special assembly jib was used to install the bridge cranes. The reinforced jib is slightly angled to create clearance for the telescopic boom.
The LTC 1045-3.1 dismantled the trolleys with the hoists; the LTM 1110-5.1 dismantled the main girders of the old bridge cranes; and the LTM 1130-5.1 lifted in the new girders.
