High and mighty

Rüdiger Zollondz of Terex-Cranes explains the importance of cost savings, increased efficiency and innovation in large-scale industrial construction.

EUINFRA. Europe's growing need for power is necessitating big investments in new generation and transmission capacity. What technical challenges do such large projects hold for those charged with building them?
Rüdiger Zollondz. Those big investments include the refurbishment of existing power plants, the building of new ones and the erection of wind turbines. Most projects run on a very tight schedule, and we notice a clear trend toward modularisation. This helps ensure both quality of the installed components and saves time on the construction site. Components that previously had to be assembled in the air, or that had to be installed very early in the power plant construction process, nowadays get delivered to the construction sites as modules.

Those modular systems are getting both heavier and larger, requiring cranes with a higher lifting capacity. Often, these giant loads need to be moved from one place to the other which is a typical application for our Terex crawler cranes. Crawler cranes have the capability to pick and carry, whereas other lifting solutions, such as ring lift or pedestal cranes are stationary.

In the current economic climate, controlling costs is of paramount importance. How can advanced construction machinery, such as cranes, create savings through increased efficiency?
Increased lifting capacity can lead to substantial savings in the construction process. Now, one crane can often do lifts that previously required two large cranes. For example, our CC 9800 lattice boom crawler crane with a maximum lifting capacity of 1600 tonnes can be configured to lift 6 MW wind turbines by itself - up to 375 t - to a hook height of 147 m.

Also, the modular design and adaptive capabilities of our cranes are key to saving money on the construction site. For example, a narrow-track chassis is available for our CC 2800-1 crane, which allows it to travel fully rigged on roads that are not wider than 5.3 m. This greatly reduces set-up time on site, allows our customers to erect more wind turbines in less time and helps to protect the environment since special road work is not necessary.

What attributes and capabilities do cranes require to be able to cope with the specific needs of large-scale industrial construction?
Mobility is one decisive factor. Cranes need to be transported between construction sites. Through intelligent design of the components, large savings are possible in transportation costs. For example, the counterweight slabs for our crawler cranes are offered in 7.5t, 10t and 15t sizes and are identical through the whole CC product line. This allows our customers to optimise the payload of each truck during transportation. Counterweights can be stocked in different locations and then transported from the closest location to the construction site.

It is also important to have equipment that provides the flexibility to adapt to diverse requirements during large-scale industrial construction. For example, our CC 8800-1 crane can be upgraded to the biggest pick-and-carry unit in the world, the CC 8800-1 TWIN with a maximum lifting capacity of 3200 tonnes.

The need for innovation remains constant, no more so than during a downturn. What major developments in the construction equipment industry do you envision in the coming months and years?
Upcoming developments will improve all aspects of crane safety operations. Terex is committed to the design and manufacturing of our cranes to best-in-class product safety standards. Another trend involves high expectations regarding equipment efficiency. Our customers want to generate high returns on their investment. We are focused on supporting them through intelligent application solutions that help to increase the uptime of our cranes. The goal is to deliver machines that get jobs done safely while having a low total cost of ownership during their lifetime. It is a big advantage for Terex Cranes that we bring together diverse crane experts from within the company, in order to exchange knowledge, learn from each other and make the best solutions available to our customers.

Rüdiger Zollondz leads the global product marketing team at Terex Cranes. His focus is on capturing customer input for product developments, as well as product-related analysis, support and literature. He holds a degree in mechanical engineering and has been working in the cranes industry since 1989 when he joined Demag as a calculation engineer.