A Liebherr LR 11000 crawler crane featuring the innovative, highly flexible “V-frame” ballasting system has successfully completed its first jobs in the field. The 1000-tonne crane operated by Swiss crane logistics contractor Emil Egger AG used this hydraulically adjustable folding frame for the suspended ballast to complete a spectacular bridge hoist near Lausanne and also removed an old fire ship from the River Rhine in Basel. If the V-frame had not been used, these two crane jobs would only have been possible at significantly higher cost.
The bridge site at Moudon in western Switzerland featured everything that could make a crane job more difficult – extremely restricted space, protected trees and a heavy bridge which had to be positioned over a river with a 180 degree slewing process by the crane with a large radius and therefore also a large suspended ballast radius. The demanding requirements on site therefore created perfect conditions for a stiff practical test for the first use of the new V-frame on the LR 11000 operated by Emil Egger AG. “Without the hydraulically adjustable ballast radius, hoisting the bridge would have been significantly more expensive,” is how Managing Director and crane enthusiast Michael Egger explains the solution he provided for this job. “Firstly, it would have required much more expensive work on the embankment to get closer to the abutments with a crawler crane. And then we would also have required a much longer crane track to complete the bridge immediately in front of the abutment.”
Just a few weeks later, the V-frame was able to show its strengths yet again for hoisting a ship onto the banks of the River Rhine in Basel on the same crawler crane. The adjustable ballast system was used for this job because there were buildings and obstacles in the way of the derrick ballast during the slewing process. In addition to the LR 11000, Liebherr also supplies the V-frame for the LR 1800-1.0, the newest crawler crane development from Ehingen.