The plant needed to be installed on the roof of SingTel’s four-storey Satellite Earth Station administration building on Bukit Timah, the highest point in Singapore. The building is located on the side of the hill, with the only point of access for a crane available where the driveway enters a small service area between two buildings.
This meant a traditional telescopic boom crane was unable to carry out the work, leaving lift contractor Hiap Tong Crane and Transport with only the option of deploying the MK 110.
The MK 110 is mounted on a five-axle chassis and has a 52m-long lattice jib. It can lift 8t at 16m, or 1.8t at 52m. With the jib angled at 45°, the crane can lift 1.7t to a height of 68m.
Hiap Tong was contracted to carry out the lift in one day, with the crane’s erection time of 15 minutes helping to meet this schedule, it said. Hiap Tong also removed external light fittings from the walls of the buildings to maximise manoeuvrability. To stabilise the crane, the nearside outriggers were inserted in a doorway and a niche in the building’s structure.
“The space between the two buildings is only 8.2m and there is not enough room to swivel the structure of a telescopic crane,” said Hiap Tong’s manager Stanley Ng. “We are lifting the loads to a height of about 30m, and placing them 10m from the edge of the roof.
“Because this is essentially a mobile tower crane, we can vertically lift in this very small area, and we have no need to swivel the crane.”
