Vertical Vienna

The new university campus covers a 10 hectare site, making it one of the largest construction projects currently in Austria, and nearby a new railway station, with a price tag of €4bn, is set replace the existing stations in the city.

With works taking place all over the city, the new railway line will connect the western and southern railways via a tunnel, eliminating the need to travel to other stations to change trains within the city and updating the infrastructure. “The idea was to have a new station that connects all the main lines in Austria,” said a site representative.

The site of the station itself is located next to Austria’s famous Belvedere Palace.

“We’ve had some problems consulting with the heritage development/cultural heritage because of the proximity to Belvedere,” he said.

There are 9 Liebherr towers on the site. They include a 250 EC H Litronic, configured at 251m height and an internal tower crane at 24m. When they both reach final height they will dismantle each other. The Liebherrs have been installed on rails.

Crane drivers use the Litronic’s range limiting system so that they cannot overslew the rails. Liebherr says that the site is also using fast erecting cranes on crawler tracks because of the large size of the job site.

Supervisors managing the works are planning to deal with potential complaints from noise caused by the construction, establishing a call centre to facilitate rapid shut downs of construction when complaints arise with an ombudsman to handle noise complaint calls.

Across the city, 17 tower cranes are operating simultaneously at Campus WU.

The contractor building the Middle and West sections is Granit Gesellschaft., while the contractor the East section is Bilfinger Berger Baugesellschaft.

Six units of Liebherr’s 280 EC-H 12 Litronic are configured with hook heights of between 31.3m and 68.6m, and radii of between 60–70m.

Six additional flat tops are at work on the site: five 250 EC-B 12 Litronic units and one a 280 EC-B 12 Litronic. These are arranged vertically, with hook heights of 35.8–69m, and slewing radii of 50m or 65m.

Four of the Liebherrs, having hook heights over 60m, stand on a reinforced base tower section 12.4m high.

The Project Department at Liebherr’s tower crane plant in Biberach, Germany helped manage the project. Liebherr representatives determined the most cost efficient cranes, their placement positions and erection heights.

They used CAD to plan for appropriate foundations and tower configurations, guying forces, ballasting, and power connections.

Liebherr said its service package included transport planning, getting permissions from authorities, loading, assembly, and it also planned for mobile cranes on the site.

In a move to reduce the length of the project, a 200 EC-B 10 Litronic and a 154 EC-H 6 Litronic were brought onto the site. These units offer hook heights of 32m and 38m respectively, and radii of 50m and 45m.

Liebherr explained that the modularity of this series made it a good fit for this kind of work.

“As a result of the project planning, the Liebherr EC-B and EC-H crane systems were chosen for use.

“The strictly modular design of this crane series means that every crane can be ideally adapted to the requirements of the site.

The modules of the undercarriage, tower sections, transition pieces, jib segments, and drive units can be used in any desired combination.”

Liebherr towers working at Campus WU are designed for high handling capacity, handling 3t at radii of 70m.