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| GTK1100 is the only option for difficult demolition in Germany  A German company considered several options for a challenging demolition project before selecting the Grove GTK1100 from Manitowoc as the only viable choice. Rental company and lifting specialist Scholl looked at mobile and crawler crane options to dismantle a 45 t chimney top from a 100 m tall chimney in the city of Ludwigshafen, before choosing the GTK1100. Jürgen Jensen, the project manager at Scholl in charge of the Ludwigshafen job, said there were prohibiting factors that ruled out other alternatives. "When we presented our first option for demolition, we were unable to get permissions from the local authority," he said. "It was at this stage we started to consider the GTK1100. We looked at other options, in addition to the GTK, but ruled them out because the logistics made their use impossible. In the end, we made the correct choice with the GTK1100 as everything went perfectly. And, it was faster and less costly than using alternative lifting systems." The first choice for Scholl was to use a large all-terrain crane, with full luffing jib and a man basket attached to the hook. A demolition crew would exit the basket to the chimney structure to begin a manual demolition. However, the local government authorities at Neustadt an der Weinstrasse did not approve this lift plan. Scholl approached GTK owner Wiesbauer at this stage about using the crane for the project and also examined putting either a large crawler or all-terrain crane with luffing jib on the job. However, a lack of available ground space on the project eliminated the crawler and all-terrain crane options because it was impossible to rig a luffing jib. With an outrigger base of just 18 m x 18 m and only a few trailers to transport the crane to site, the GTK was a natural choice for the Ludwigshafen job. A further benefit was that the GTK requires far less ground preparation and offers less ground pressure than alternatives. Jochen Wiesbauer, managing director at Wiesbauer, said that the industry's understanding of the GTK's true capabilities is growing. "The more we work with our GTK cranes, the more we understand their potential, " he said. "As soon as we started talking to Scholl and understood that this was a 45 t lift at 100 m with a lack of ground space, we instantly knew that the GTK was the solution. Not only was the GTK the only solution for the project, it was also faster and more cost-effective than the alternatives considered." For the lift, Scholl and Wiesbauer attached a Modulift lifting beam to the GTK's hook block and attached it to four fixing points on the chimney top. Including rigging, the GTK lifted 47.2 t at 100 m without a problem. The crane has a maximum lift capacity of 95 t and a maximum tip height of 143 m. write your comments about the article :: © 2009 Construction News :: home page |