In Tuttlingen, southern Germany, a temporary 70-metre-long bridge has been constructed over the River Danube utilising four Liebherr LTC 1050-3.1 compact cranes.
The bridge serves as a temporary replacement while a new structure is built over the next two years. This development is part of a civil defence exercise led by the Federal Agency for Technical Relief (THW).
These compact cranes played a crucial role in assembling the column-free heavy-duty bridge. The construction involved the assembly of four segments, each weighing approximately 100 tonnes, from hundreds of individual parts.
The completed structure is described as the largest of its kind ever erected by the German civil protection and disaster relief organisation.
A significant challenge was the limited space available at the pre-assembly site. The cranes had to operate among various stored materials and equipment, including lorries and forklifts.
To enhance manoeuvrability, some cranes had their front storage compartments removed, reducing their length to 10.35 metres, allowing for better efficiency in the confined space.
Niklas Stein operated one of the LTC 1050-3.1s for a week at the time of operation.
Stein said: “Here on the construction site, the machine’s advantages are particularly evident. And despite its compact dimensions, the LTC simply has a huge lifting capacity.”
The THW had acquired 18 of these compact cranes from the Liebherr plant in Ehingen two years prior to the project’s commencement.
Once the bridge segments were pre-assembled, they were transported several hundred metres to the river site. There, the compact cranes joined the segments together into a continuous truss structure.
For the final stage of the project, two Liebherr LTM 1650-8.1 mobile cranes, provided by MSG Krandienst and Scholpp Kran & Transport, were positioned on each bank of the river. These cranes worked in tandem to lift the assembled structure onto the abutments, completing its placement over the Danube.
Recently, three Liebherr flat-top cranes supported the redevelopment of two early 20th-century gasometers in Milan’s Bovisa district, which are being transformed into an innovation campus for the Politecnico di Milano.
