Who will lift the lifters?

I was highly amused by this photograph of cranes lifting each other in series.

The stunt was arranged at a Liebherr open day in Ehingen, Germany.

Liebherr unveiled three new cranes at its ‘2012 Customer Days’ event at Ehingen manufacturing facility in Germany.

. . .

The highlight of the machine demonstrations was the LR 13000 lifting the three smaller cranes. This particularly tricky lift was the brain-child of Hans-Dieter Willim, Liebherr’s chief crane designer.

. . .

... the LR 13000, fitted with a 108 metre Power (P) boom lifted all three cranes - with a combined weight of 1,430 tonnes, at a radius of 30 metres. The crane has a capacity of 1,521 tonnes at that radius and was therefore at 94 percent of its capacity.

. . .

The centres of gravity and weights of all the cranes had to be calculated very accurately as any deviation would immediately have affected the working radius of the crane lifting triggering a chain reaction.

. . .

The LR13000 was then able to slew the load smoothly as both the counterweight and three crane load were in balance. To end the demonstration, the LR 13000 then tracked – very slowly - with its 5,000 tonne applying a ground pressure of only 70 tonnes per square metre. Additional mats could be used to reduce this to 30 tonnes a square metre.

There's more at the link, including more photographs and technical details.

I'm just glad they didn't try that in a cross-wind . . .





Peter