Canadian contractor Cambie Forming has taken delivery of a new 24-tonne Liebherr 280 HC-L 12/24 Litronic luffing jib tower crane.
The new crane joins several 280 HC-Ls in the fleet and went straight to work on what will be a 56-storey, 182-metre residential Hillside East Tower 1 being built in Burnaby, British Columbia and part of a neighbourhood development project which will include several buildings in the Brentwood district – most residential – but also with shops, cafés and restaurants.
On towers this high the climbing process is, of course, critical. The new 280 HC-L climbs the building in exactly the same way as a neighbouring Liebherr 355 HC-L 16/32 Litronic from the Cambie fleet which is working on the 142-metre Hillside East Tower 2. The site layout proved a challenge in this respect. Both cranes could only be assembled in one place, as site operations would have been disrupted.
Experts from Liebherr’s Tower Crane Solutions group worked with Cambie to develop a climbing concept, alongside planning support for the project. This resulted in an optimal climbing process to minimise the loads on the building and the crane guy wires. Despite these challenges, only six guys were needed to safely climb the crane to the top.
Liebherr’s HC-L series cranes are designed for use on high buildings and can be easily assembled on constricted construction sites. They feature in-house manufactured high-performance drives and feature straightforward hook re-reeving from one to two line operation. The ‘level luffing’ function is intended to make it easier for the operator to work safely while maximising. When the jib moves, the control system automatically readjusts the hoist unit so that the hook travels along a horizontal path.
The crane’s operator Richard Out said: “The 280 HC-L is an extremely reliable and responsive crane. It’s by far the best crane I’ve worked with in my 25-year professional career. The technology that has impressed me the most is the Micromove and the level luffing at the push of a button, which makes it much easier to place concrete formwork panels with millimetre precision. I also like the completely unrestricted view of loads from the modern LiCAB cab.
“We’ve owned Liebherr products for more than 15 years and have complete confidence in the reliability, quality of manufacturing and usability of these cranes as well as the provided customer service. As far as we are concerned, 280 HC-L cranes have the best lifting and luffing speeds out there, they also offer impressive lifting capacities and are flexible when it comes to assembly.”
Cambie managing director Peter Betz
