Designed for maximum performance: Liebherr unveils new 800-tonne LR 1800-1.0 crawler crane

Liebherr will unveil new crane models and innovations from its mobile and crawler crane division on 13 and 14 June 2018 at its customer days. One special highlight is the presentation of its completely newly developed LR 1800-1.0 800-tonne crawler crane.

New model name

This new crane model also sees Liebherr introduce a new suffix to the model name for crawler cranes: The "1" after the hyphen stands for the first model of the 800-tonne crawler crane. The "0" after the dot means the first version – this number will be incremented by 1 with each major technical modification in the future.

Powerful industrial crane

The new LR 1800-1.0 extends the Liebherr range of crawler cranes in the class below 1000 tonnes, particularly for industrial work such as power plant construction and jobs in the petrochemicals industry. This type of work generally requires luffing jibs and derrick systems. The focus of the product development work on the new large crane was to achieve maximum lifting capacities for these applications whilst also ensuring low cost transport around the world. The new LR 1800-1.0 is currently the most powerful crawler crane on the market with a basic machine just 3 metres wide. It is particularly rigid as a result of the increased design height. A quick connection to raise the superstructure for transport is standard.

Low cost transport around the world

The concept of the boom system is completely new – three lattice sections are telescoped for transport. This principle has been designed and improved for the standard configuration with an 84-metre main boom and 84-metre luffing jib. The large lattice sections are at the bottom section of the main boom, the medium ones in the top section of the main boom and in the bottom section of the luffing jib. The small lattice sections are installed in the upper section of the luffing jib. The standard length can be extended to the maximum length of the boom system of 102 metres for the main boom plus 102 metres for the luffing jib.

Another feature which reduces transport costs is that the basic machine is designed with a 3 metre transport width and a maximum transport weight of 45 tonnes. The weight of the crawler travel gear of 60 tonnes can be reduced to a transport weight of less than 45 tonnes by removing the tracks. The base plates have a standard width of 2 metres to keep the ground pressure as low as possible.

Innovative derrick ballast

The new LR 1800-1.0 also features the VarioTray innovation. After raising the lattice boom with the large derrick ballast, part of the ballast can be unbolted quickly and easily. Only a small proportion of the ballast is generally required for hoisting work with the boom in steep position. This avoids the tiresome stacking and unstacking of ballast slabs.

A new type of ballasting system is used for the suspended ballast. A hydraulically adjustable folding frame allows the ballast radius to be adjusted to up to 23 metres. This means that a fixed guiding frame is no longer required for large radii.

The ballast takes the form of 10 tonne Liebherr standard slabs. This means that it can be used universally on other Liebherr crawler crane models. The LR 1800-1.0 operates with a maximum of 230 tonnes of slewing platform ballast, 70 tonnes of central ballast and up to 400 tonnes of derrick ballast.

The crawler chassis features a four-way drive unit as standard. A Liebherr V8 diesel engine which develops 455 kW / 610 bhp is used to power the LR 1800-1.0. The engine already complies with the Stage V exhaust emissions standard.

The modern LICCON2 controller once again delivers extended set-up facilities and monitored erection for the LR 1800-1.0.