The lifting company was assigned to install 24 new tanks for beer fermentation, providing an additional 400m3 per tank of storage capacity for a total of 9,600m3.
It decided that a tandem lift using Demag AC 160-5 and AC 100-4 all terrain cranes offered the most efficient and cost-effective solution for the customer.
A single crane option for building and installing the tanks was initially on the table. “This plan required unloading the tanks from the trailers and placing them on a raised concrete slab,” explains Bruno Declercq, owner of Action Lev, who was also operating the larger of the two cranes. “Thanks to the compact size and manoeuvrability of the AC 160-5, I was able to set up the crane on the concrete slab in order to reduce the working radius. Otherwise, we would have had to use a crane with a capacity of 700t to lift them from the outdoor parking area.”
As is the case with many craft brewers, space is at a premium, and the location of the storage tanks at the back of the building does not leave much room for cranes. The situation was challenging because there was a 6m-wide passageway to position two mobile cranes and a convoy requiring a space of six by 30m. So Action Lev chose to tackle the challenge deploying a Demag AC 100-4 four-axle crane that was to lift the lower section of the tanks.
The crew then set up the AC 160-5 crane on the raised concrete slab to handle the new tanks. “This allowed the AC 160-5 to be rigged close to the load’s final position, so we could use a smaller capacity crane,” explains Declercq. Ths left the access passageway free for the six metre convoy and the set up of the AC 100-4.
To place the tanks, the AC 100-4 and AC 160-5 cranes required maximum counterweight of 26.1t 46t respectively. The dual-crane solution employed by Action Lev allowed the crew to cleanly and efficiently place six tanks per day.
