Mammoet Germany, the German subsidiary of Dutch heavy load specialist Mammoet, used two large Liebherr crawler cranes, LR11350 and LR11000 to tandem load a tunnel boring machine (TBM) onto a barge at Kehl, an industrial river port on the Gerrman side of the river Rhine in Baden-Württemberg in Germany.
The TBM weighs 950 ton and was built by German construction equipment manufacturer Herrenknecht. The LR11350 was rented from Dutch crane rental company P. van Adrighem (still in its former owner, Scottish crane contractor Weldex’s colours) and LR11000 was rented from Wiesabauer, a southern Germany based crane company.
The two cranes were transported to Kehl via inland waterway, the LR11350 coming from Rotterdam and the LR11000 coming from Mannheim. When both cranes arrived, they were assembled along with the TBM components which arrived from the Herrenknecht factory 30 kilometres away in Schwanau.
In total, the two Liebherr crawlers offered a total lifting capacity of 2,350 ton (37,919 ton-metres of load moment).
Mammoet took several hours to hoist the TBM onto the barge as the LR11350 requires to use its 300 ton of ballast on the suspended superlift base plate. This is because the TBM has to be lowered into the barge’s hold at a radius of around 30 metres. The large working radius is due to the limitation on the structural strength of the loading platform. As a result of the high ground pressure, the load capacity of the ground in this area had to be recalculated to find a safer area for the crawler to be positioned. During the final phase of the hoisting operations, both crawlers using a total of 1,600 ton of ballast.
Once safely sat on the barge, the TBM components were transported to the Dutch coast which will take five days and again shipped to the United Kingdom in November where it will be used in a tunnelling project.
