Heavyweight challenge

Terex Cranes’ Klaus Meissner tells EU Infrastructure about the construction trends driving his company’s business.

Have you noticed significant changes in the market for your heavy lifting segment? 
Klaus Meissner. As a crane manufacturer we have witnessed a growing demand for our products. Increasing global wealth and population growth has led to much new investment in infrastructure construction in many parts of the world.

We are seeing this infrastructure investment in all areas, including transport infrastructure – road-building, railways and waterways; the energy sector – building new power plants and refurbishing existing ones, as well as building facilities which make use of renewable energy sources and general construction.

How far are you affected by these developments?
KM. The energy sector, for example, is a major area of operation for our large crawler cranes. The activities we have noticed recently include the building of new plants in order to extend the supply base as well as the replacement or refurbishment of existing plants in order to make them more efficient and to reduce emissions. We have also seen the development of renewable energy sources, such as wind in many different locations. In order to cope with the lifting challenges involved in these construction projects, very efficient and powerful machines are needed, which incur minimal downtime and work cost effectively. This is where the experience of Terex Cranes comes into play.

What are the challenges for your cranes in the erection of wind turbines?
KM. Wind turbines may be located on-shore, near-shore or off-shore. Each location has its own specific requirements. For example, to erect wind turbines on-shore, heavy loads have to be lifted to a great height on a relatively short radius (eg. loads of 100t at 100m height and 20m radius). In order to meet these specific job requirements, our standard configuration cranes are provided with additional equipment.

Wind turbines are getting larger and larger, and they are sometimes erected in areas where the terrain is rough and access is difficult. For example, there may be width restrictions on access roads for environmental reasons.

The knowledgeable Terex Cranes team has helped our customers deal with these specific challenges in various ways, for example by developing a special mid-section of the undercarriage for our 600t crawler crane, Terex Demag CC 2800-1. This ‘narrow track’ setup allows the crane to travel on narrow construction roads (5m width) from one wind turbine erection site to another and even to travel fully erected in quite hilly areas. 

What heavy-lift challenges do you face in other construction areas?
KM. Other application areas include the erection and refurbishment of nuclear and conventional thermal power plants, the erection of gas condensation reactors and general construction.

Nuclear power plants are currently being erected to replace older units and to extend their output of electrical energy. Depending on the type of plant, two ‘monster-lifters’ can be required to lift an incredible 800t at a radius of 50m. In other cases they might lift only 700t but at a full 100m radius. These impressive loads are required for the power plants to be built on-schedule, since the optimum scenario involves prefabricating many components close to the place where they will later be required.

Conventional thermal power plants are also being built and this work is currently typical for central Europe and North America. In many cases, existing plants are refurbished to increase efficiency and to meet improved environmental standards. The cranes used in these situations have to be very versatile to carry out the different tasks involved in building the plant, such as erecting the support structure for the boiler unit.

As far as general construction is concerned, our big crawler cranes are used in a wide array of applications, such as lifting-in prefabricated highway parts or bridges. One recent example is a Terex Demag CC 6800 which was used to replace an old railway bridge in Nyköping, Sweden. Using conventional methods, the railway line would have been closed for more than a month. The use of our Terex Demag CC 6800 lattice boom crane with 1250t lifting capacity reduced this period to less than a week.

How is Terex Cranes positioned in the heavy-lifting market?
KM. Terex Cranes offers a full line of lifting equipment tailored to a broad range of lifting needs. As far as big crawler cranes are concerned, Terex Cranes offers highly efficient equipment which provide a great return on investment and can carry out particularly large lifts in infrastructure development. Through its engineering support, Terex facilitates continuous improvement as well as special solutions that are developed to meet clients’ needs. 

As Director of Research and Development for Terex Demag mobile cranes between 2002 and 2007, Klaus Meissner oversaw the development of many new telescopic mobile and lattice boom crawler cranes. In 2008, he took on his new role as Director for Terex Cranes Product Integrity.