“Grand Paris” – Liebherr tower cranes on the largest construction site in Europe

Four additional Métro lines, 68 station and 200 kilometres of new track – “Grand Paris” is the largest construction site in Europe. By 2030, the current public transport network will be doubled to prevent a collapse in the local transport and create attractive areas to live. The existing infrastructure will also be refurbished and extended. So there is plenty to do for the contractors working on the site. Machinery from almost every division of the Liebherr Group is operating there.

Precision advice from Tower Crane Solutions

Before the engineers erected the cranes at the “Grand Paris” sites, a meeting was held to provide some precision advice, for which Liebherr Tower Crane Solutions used all its decades of experience. One of the major factors behind the success of this advice was that Tower Crane Solutions was on board at an early stage of the planning process. This meant that the requirements for the lifting equipment and the site architecture could be fully taken into consideration.

The result is that the 1000 EC-H 40 Litronic high-top crane proved to be a particularly economical solution for building the Métro tunnels. “These tower cranes meet the very specific requirements of the production logistics system", explains Stephan Formica, Sales Director at Liebherr Tower Cranes. The 1000 EC-H 40 Litronic is the largest Liebherr tower crane model in action in France.

Positioning prefabricated concrete components accurately

The 1000 EC-H 40 Litronic can position even loads weighing several tonnes with millimetre precision as it is doing in the “Grand Paris” infrastructure project – the top-slewing cranes have to hoist prefabricated concrete components weighing up to eight tonnes to destinations below ground level where the components are assembled to form a tunnel casing. In total, each crane moves around 500 tonnes per day. As the cranes are in action for a matter of months or even years, high quality workmanship is important to rule out the possibility of premature wear.

The cranes are erected on the slimline, durable, cost-efficient 24 HC tower system. As a result of its compact transport dimensions, the managers have not had to register any heavy haulage operations with the authorities. Trucks can transport the various elements easily to the places they are required. Regular heavy haulage operations would only have made the already tense traffic situation in Paris even worse.

Fast service response times

Excellent service is essential to ensure operations run smoothly on the site. Lengthy downtimes of the cranes would result in significant costs and, in the worst case scenario, could jeopardise the timetable. The Liebherr service team delivers maximum availability and guarantees fast response times. The service technicians continuously check the condition of the cranes in action. LiDAT, the data transfer and location system for Liebherr machines, helps to ensure high quality service.

To ensure that it is prepared for every eventuality, Liebherr also has an extensive spare parts warehouse at its own service outlet in Fontenay-Tresigny. This is in the immediate vicinity of the “Grand Paris” sites which means that the service technicians can source spare parts quickly. The service team from Liebherr Grues à Tour works in partnership with CAP, Vinci Construction, Eiffage, Razel-Bec and Spie batignolles.

Stephan Formica is delighted with the coordinated interaction of cranes and service in Paris: “Early planning, powerful hoisting solutions and a dense service network mean that even very difficult construction projects can be completed economically.”