18000 lifts tunnel boring machine

Owner and operator of the Model 18000 is Transportes y Gruas Aguado, a Spanish firm that owns 250 pieces of construction equipment, including 60 cranes. Approximately 25% of Aguado’s crane fleet are MCG machines, mostly Grove mobile cranes. The Model 18000 is its most recent purchase; the company also owns a Model 15000. For the Dulcinea lift, Aguado used Manitowoc’s capacity enhancing MAX-ER attachment which expanded the Model 18000’s capacity to an impressive 750 t (826 USt).

Juan Aguado Sr, general manager of Aguado, said the Model 18000 had completed its inaugural lift with flying colors.

“The Dulcinea lift is our first job with the Model 18000 and it has proved very successful,” he said. “The Grove product has always served us very well, and its reputation gave us the confidence to buy another crane from Manitowoc Crane Group. We rigged the Model 18000 a month before the lift, as concise detail and preparation were vital.”

MCG’s lift planning software, Compu-Crane played a key role. Two weeks prior to the lift, the software planned a complete simulation of the operation. Aguado then presented this data to the contractors and, other than circumstantial issues, the lift went exactly as planned.

Aguado makes use of Manitowoc Crane CARE technical support – specifically on its two crawler cranes. This industry-leading after-sales service is part of the reason for the recent success of Manitowoc in Spain, according to Nuno Peixoto, sales manager for Manitowoc and Grove in the Iberia region, who said that deliveries of crawler cranes have taken off in recent months.

“We have sold a number of crawler cranes in a just over a year,” he said. “In fact, the first crawler we sold was the Model 15000 to Aguado in March last year. Since then, we have sold two Model 777s, a Model 2250, a Model 1015, a Model 12000E, another Model 15000 and two Model 18000s. Manitowoc crawler cranes have an excellent reputation – there is quality associated with the brand.”

Oscar Aguado, operations manager at Aguado, said the decision to purchase the Model 18000 was based on three main factors.

“Our decision to buy the Model 18000 was based on price, quality, and the excellent load charts,” he said. “We found the Model 18000 to be far better than competitor machines in the same capacity class. Also, we have a lot of experience dealing with Grove cranes through its excellent local dealer Mopsa, so we have experience with MCG machines.”

Aguado purchased all additional jibs and counterweights for the Model 18000 to give the company maximum flexibility on all jobsites. The Model 18000 offers a 186 m (610 ft) maximum tip height when configured with luffing jib on main boom and MAX-ER, but as mass took precedence on the Dulcinea lift, the Model 18000 was rigged with 45 m (148 ft) of boom.

Aguado has 300 employees between Madrid and it’s delegations in Andalucia and has been in business for over 25 years. Currently Dulcinea is boring 3.5 km (2.2 miles) of tunnels under Madrid’s streets for a joint venture of contractors comprised by Ferrovial and Acciona.