Based in Canada, CMLabs produces simulators, under the Vortex brand name, for application across the industry, in construction, offshore, dockside and industry. Simulated machines range from mobile to tower cranes, offshore knuckle booms to platform and ship cranes, and overheads to pick and carry cranes.

High wind, blind lifts, tandem lifts with two simulators and engineered heavy lifts can all be experienced. Simulators also help build quick reactions and experience with the unexpected: a sling break, high wind gust or outrigger failure.

Euan Youdale: How has crane simulation developed over recent years and why?

Arnold Free: Crane simulators have been used for operator training since the mid-1990s. Early simulators did not have very realistic graphics and the simulation of the crane and load dynamics was poor. In addition, training content was really limited to basic control familiarisation and understanding basic operating procedures. Today there is a wide range of simulator products available, from simplistic desktop ‘crane games’ to very immersive high-fidelity simulators. Cost for crane simulator solutions varies from several thousand dollars to many hudreds of thousands.

EY: How has the technology progressed to enable this?

AF: The improvements in low-cost computing power and 3D graphics have made the technology more accessible. Simulators that cost close to US$1 million 10 to 15 years ago can be built for half or a third of that cost today. In addition, there has been considerable progress in software technology to build simulations. Tools like Vortex, a commercial software development toolkit to build equipment simulators, allow software developers to accurately simulate the dynamics of heavy equipment and hoisting systems with off-the-shelf solutions. That challenge in delivering high quality simulation-based training is moving from a technical challenge to one of a training and learning content development challenge – building effective training).

EY: How will technology allow the development of simulators in the future?

AF: The quality of the simulation – visual and fidelity of dynamics – will continue to improve as will the training content for real skills development. More integrated training is becoming available: team based training, integrated maintenance, rigger, equipment training.

EY: How will simulators’ offerings expand in the future?

AF: One area we see a growing interest is in team-training; it is simply not good enough to only train the operator. Lift operations is team work and it is essential to train the operator, signalman and rigger to work together. In the case of tandem lifts, or engineered lifts, such as wind turbine erection, not only do team members need to work together but more than one piece of equipment needs to work together as well. Building immersive simulation-based training for the entire lift team is not only possible, we have implemented it at training institutes today. Team work cannot be taught in a class room, and a simulated multi-player training environment is the ideal solution to build team work before the lift crew is on the worksite.

We also see a growing need to train operators in specific equipment with the integration of OEM control systems. In the past, simulator suppliers have tended to mimic control systems for cranes. However, cranes are becoming more-and-more complex to operate. The skills operators need is moving from basic hand-eye coordination to become systems managers as the computer systems on board cranes becomes more and more complex.

EY: How do simulators tie up with certification and training bodies?

AF: In the construction industry we have incorporated certification tests within the training exercises. Operators can practice standard tests such as the NCCCO [National Commission for the Certification of Operators] tests using different types and sizes of cranes. Procedures such as start-up tasks, pre-lift inspection and deployment of outriggers are all incorporated so students can learn safe operating procedures that reflect the current standards.

In the offshore industry we have adopted guidelines from OMHEC [Offshore Mechanical Handling Equipment Committee] for operator, signalman and rigger training in a team-based learning context. Vortex simulators are in use at many training institutes and those organisations have very much influenced the training content within the exercises.

We also see simulation being used for certification and re-certification more and more. For example, North Sea crane operators must be recertified every three years. This recertification can be done using simulators. The role and use of simulation will continue to grow – in some areas we are even building simulation-based training directly into the actual equipment so operators can perform training in the equipment seat during downtime.

EY: Are there developments in training people who work outside the cab?

AF: We see a lot of interest in the use of simulation for lift planning. There is a growing need to simulate engineered lifts in advance, by an engineer or lift specialist in a desktop application context. Essentially providing a 3D environment where an engineer can select a crane, define the load and lifting conditions and actually perform the lift virtually.

This type of tool can be used to evaluate equipment performance, site safety and even as input to training site operators on how a lift will be performed. We have been doing quite a bit of this work in the offshore industry related to subsea lift. Using simulation at the planning stage allows companies to reduce project risk, evaluate alternatives to reduce cost and improve safety. To date this has largely been driven by the offshore industry due to the complexities and high cost of operations and safety issues related to deep water subsea and heavy lifts.

Source:

http://www.khl.com/magazines/international-cranes-and-specialized-transport/detail/item70657/Arnold-Free,-CMLabs-chief-operating-officer,-talks-about-crane-simulators/

Liebherr to deliver 100th crane to African continent,  LHM 550 mobile harbour crane to be delivered to APM Terminals Apapa, Nigeria.

Liebherr will celebrate a major milestone this year with the delivery of their one hundredth mobile harbour crane to the African continent.

In March, Liebherr will deliver a type LHM 550 mobile harbour crane to APM Terminals Apapa, Nigeria.

APM Terminal’s African fleet will then comprise of nine heavy-duty machines operating at terminals in Benin, Luanda and Apapa.

In 1976, just two years after entering the mobile harbour crane business, Liebherr supplied their first two LHMs to Africa, with both mobile harbour cranes were destined for Libya.

In the next two decades business was poor due to serious stability issues, quests for independence as well as low economic development in various African countries.

However, two deliveries to ports in South Africa and Namibia marked the significant turnaround in 1996. These machines represent the first LHMs suitable for bulk handling in Africa. From that point on business has been back on track, claims Liebherr.

Since 2007, more than 70 Liebherr Mobile Harbour Cranes have started operation in Africa.

Nigeria accounts for almost one quarter of all Liebherr Mobile Harbour Cranes in Africa with a total of 24. Algeria follows closely with 21 LHMs in operation.

Moreover, Algeria plus its neighbour countries Libya and Tunisia represent Africa’s most populated region with altogether 43 machines.

However, recent development shows that the southern and western regions of the continent are catching-up, mainly driven by Nigeria and South Africa respectively.

Regarding Liebherr’s competitive product range, so far LHM 400 and LHM 250 represent the most important models in Africa, each with 19 machines in operation.

Liebherr’s most recent market launch, the LHM 550 in 2010, has potential, according to Liebherr, to become the best selling mobile harbour crane in Africa, with eight already in operation and several orders in the backlog.

Source:

http://www.porttechnology.org/news/liebherr_reaches_milestone_with_supply_of_100th_mobile_harbour_crane_to_afr/

A reader has sent us a fascinating video of a job in Zams, Austria, the client, a food company building a supermarket and restaurant, had to install a clear span concrete floor into an existing building. Might it also qualify for our Death Wish series though?

The contractor along with crane, lifting and moving company Felbermayer came up with an ingenious solution, although several parts of the job shout Death Wish, in spite of the clearly meticulous planning and innovative solution.

An opening – slot if you will – was made in the façade of the building through which the contractor had to slide the 10 tonne beams. Felbermayer came up with the solution to place a compact city type All Terrain crane on cribbing getting on for around two metres high. This, combined with the cranes jacks, placed the boom pivot point on a level with the slot in the façade.

The beams were unloaded from the street in a tandem lift between the two All Terrain cranes – the other being at ground level. The beams were then slewed towards the building and then telescoped all the way in. A heavy fork truck then took the weight of the bean at the façade end, so that the larger AT could be uncoupled. The remaining crane and fork truck then moved the beam into its final resting place.

The whole job is a pleasure to watch …but… given the number of accidents we see we could not help but notice how many work at height issues there are, from the man uncoupling the crane from the fork truck to those doing the final fit and the unprotected edge. To the most glaring issue that cribbing which resembles a large game of Jenga.

Source:

http://www.vertikal.net/en/news/story/14049/

In mid-2011 Spanish tower crane manufacturer Saez Cranes faced one of the biggest challenges of its recent history. It began in Italy a few months before June. The Cordée Mont Blanc group had been awarded a contract to build a new cableway station in Mont Blanc, 3,462 metres above sea level.

Paolo Moscoloni, president of Edilpiemonte S.a.s., the Saez Cranes dealer in the north western Italian region of Piemonte, received a call from the person leading Cordée. He wanted a quotation for two 160 tonne-metre rated tower cranes able to lift 10 tonnes. and the cranes had to be erected on top of one of the tallest peaks of Mont Blanc: Pointe Helbronner.

This future location of the cranes had two main problems: number one was that the cranes had to be erected with a helicopter, so the heaviest component couldn’t weigh more than 2,400 kg. Number two was the extreme cold weather climate that the cranes had to withstand.

Back in Spain, the manufacturer accepted the challenge and responsibility. To build these two 10 tonne TLS 65 cranes the manufacturer had to split the jib heel section in three pieces so the heaviest would not exceed 2,400 kg. The same had to be done with the counter jibs. In addition, Saez contracted Leroy-Somer in France to build two 52 hp hoist motors specifically made for this job, with a special brake that would work well in extremely low temperatures.

To erect the cranes and, due to the lack of roads for mobile crane access, Cordée Mont Blanc had to hire several helicopters. A single engine Eurocopter B3 helicopter was hired to lift all the components weighing less than 700 kg. A Eurocopter Super Puma was hired to lift all the components weighing between 700 and 2,400 kg.

Each day, however, the wind gusted to 70 km/h, sometimes causing the helicopters to drop the tower sections unexpectedly onto Mont Blanc’s glacier. This was the most dangerous part of the whole process.

During the erection of the second crane, due to even stronger wind gusts and fluctuating weather conditions, the organisation had to cancel the job with the Eurocopter Super Puma. Under these circumstances, the helicopter was unable to lift one of the 2,440 kg jib heel sections. A few days later, Cordée Mont Blanc had to hire a more powerful Russian-made Kamov helicopter to finish the job.

The cranes’ erection was completed by three experienced Saez crane technicians, the helicopter team of three, plus an electrical engineer from the Saez factory who oversaw the installation.

The technicians recall this job as the hardest they have ever done, with the big disadvantage of the extremely changing weather. “In only 15 minutes we passed from a sunny day with 10 ºC to fog and a heavy storm, and the temperatures went down to minus 5 ºC. After a long day working on the crane, I couldn’t feel my fingers anymore,” says Gian Paolo Storoni, Saez’s most experienced electrical engineer.

The erection technicians were housed in the New Turin Refuge for climbers. They had to climb several times a day from the new refuge up to the old one. “I was completely exhausted from the repeated climbs. You can’t imagine the lack of oxygen at 3,400 metres of altitude,” Storoni continues.

How much did the installation of these two cranes cost? The flying time of the Super Puma helicopter alone cost €110 a minute and the Kamov was €140 a minute.

For Daniel Cánovas, Saez Cranes president and CEO, the most important thing was “to prove to ourselves that we can accomplish anything that we set out to do, and to our clients that they can count on us for special projects as well. I want to thank the client enormously for giving us this great opportunity. We will live up to their expectations.”

For Andrea Ninato, Saez sales rep in Italy, the most important thing was that “the whole team, of both Saez and Edilpiemonte, is extremely satisfied with the work done, and our commercial relationship has been proven strong. These past months both companies faced many obstacles, but we worked past them with mutual collaboration.”

Soon after completion of the cableway station, ski lovers and mountaineers will be able to enjoy and make use of it. Perhaps they will drink a toast to the brave technical team that made it happen.

Source:

http://www.khl.com/magazines/international-cranes-and-specialized-transport/detail/item70351/Saez-tower-cranes-erected-in-extreme-conditions-on-Mont-Blanc/

The 11,300 square metre wooden dome is in Rheinfelden, Switzerland. It will hold 100,000 tonnes of road salt. At 120 metres in diameter and 32 m tall it is the largest dome in Switzerland.

The LTM 1055-3.2 and LTM 1030/2 all terrains were used to erect the lower supporting rings of the wooden dome structure. A construction crane was used to position the upper segments of the dome. The rings were built upward in a clockwise direction. This process and the dimensional stability of the composite timber elements meant that cantilevered construction without scaffolding was possible right up to the dome.

The 55 tonner with its 40 m telescopic boom was used in planking the support structure and gradually covering the futuristic-looking lattice construction. A total of 640 coated wood-fibre sheets in lengths of up to 12 m will cover the dome.

Leu has been servicing the Swiss market for 20 years. Its crane fleet, all Liebherrs, includes mobile cranes up to 90 tonnes capacity, including an MK 80 and a brand new LTC 1045-3.1

Source:

http://www.khl.com/magazines/international-cranes-and-specialized-transport/detail/item70386/Leu-Liebherrs-on-record-dome/

Partnered with Imasa and Cotinsa, Duro Felguera makes up a third of a temporary consortium in charge of the project to build a fuel oil reduction unit (FRU) for Petronor, a subsidiary of Spanish oil and gas company Repsol.

Linden Comansa’s official dealer Algrusa erected the 18 tonne capacity Linden Comansa 21 LC 550 tower crane of the crane, as well as carrying out a range of jacking-ups.

The 21 LC 550 is working with an 80 m jib, while height under hook reaches 120 m, for which it needs two tie frame collars and 94,500 kg of ballast on a 6 m-wide folding cross base. Its main area of work is lifting and assembling pipes, support elements and different structures.

With these new facilities, Petronor wants to reduce its fuel oil production, and increase the production of other fuels such as gas, propane, butane, gasoline, coke, etcetera. This change is mainly due to the a decrease of fuel oil demand, specifically for maritime transport and industrial uses. Petronor has invested about € 835 million (US$1.160 billion) in the project.

 Source:

http://www.khl.com/magazines/international-cranes-and-specialized-transport/detail/item69795/High-tower-reduction/

Mitas says that the all-steel radial can not only cope with higher axle loadings, but also provides higher resistance to punctures, reduced rolling resistance and lower fuel consumption. Durability and traction is improved due to the bridges between the tread blocks and the company claims it has the deepest tread depth of 26mm.

A controversial issue with crane tyres in the UK are the STGO rules which allow cranes to travel on public roads with axle loads of around 16 tonnes, rather than the usual European norm of 12 tonnes.

Mitas offers a certification that stipulates that the STGO category “C” tyre can withstand axle loads of up 16,500kg, when combined with a driving speed of up to 36 miles per hour.

Liebherr crane running on Mitas' All Terrain CR-01

Jon Ward, managing director of Mitas Tyres UK, said: “Mitas has improved its research and development, design, technology and product capabilities. And because all procedures are in-house its tyres can be specifically developed to meet the requirements of customers.”

Source:

http://www.vertikal.net/en/news/story/13780/

A Manitowoc 16000 crawler crane and a Grove GMK5120B all-terrain crane from All Erection & Crane Rental Corp. were utilized to erect the 2.5 MW turbine. The first task of the project was off-loading and erecting the four tower sections from their delivery trucks. The sections were lifted and walked into position by the Model 16000, with the GMK5120B providing tailing support. Each section weighed approximately 70 tons. 

With the tower sections installed, the cranes then worked together to install the 99-ton nacelle and drive train, which was handled in two lifts. Finally, three rotor blades were bolted together at ground level before the entire 64-ton assembly was carefully lifted into place. 

Following completion of the $5.9 million project, Lincoln Electric staged an inauguration ceremony to celebrate its success. “The cranes on this job performed admirably and everything ran smoothly and on time,” said George Blankenship, president of Lincoln Electric North America. 

A third crane, a 30-ton RT530E-2 from Grove’s rough-terrain range, was also used in the early stages of construction for land preparation. 

All Erection & Crane Rental Corp. rigged the 440-ton capacity Manitowoc 16000 crawler crane with 157 feet of main boom and 177 feet of luffing jib for the project. The crane can accommodate a maximum of 432 feet of main boom. All Erection sent the crane to site on 22 trucks.

The Grove GMK5120B is a 120-ton capacity all-terrain crane with a 167-foot boom mounted on a five-axle carrier.

Source:

http://www.cranehotline.com/articles/5569/manitowoc-cranes-build-wind-turbine-in-four-days/

In his report, Reclaiming health and safety for all, the author, Professor Ragnar Löfstedt, recommended that The Notification of Tower Cranes Regulations 2010 and the Notification of Conventional Tower Cranes (Amendment) Regulations 2010 be revoked, “because the Impact Assessment was not able to identify any quantifiable benefits to health and safety outcomes.”

Chris Grayling, UK government Employment Minister, commissioned Professor Löfstedt’s review in March 2011. Löfstedt is director of the King’s Centre for Risk Management at King’s College, London.

The response to the findings of the report from The Health and Safety Executive (HSE), Britain’s national regulator for workplace health and safety, included the following:

“Professor Löfstedt has made recommendations aimed at reducing the burden of unnecessary regulation on businesses while maintaining Britain’s health and safety performance, which is among the best internationally. The Government has accepted his recommendations.”

Source:

http://www.khl.com/magazines/international-cranes-and-specialized-transport/detail/item69512/Tower-Crane-Register-to-be-revoked/

The new LC3000 range comprises two base models, the 30LC 1100 and 30LC 1400, each base model will be available in three different variants with maximum capacities of 32, 48 and 64 tonnes, maximum capacities on the 80 metre jib tip vary from 9.5 to 15 tonnes depending on the model.

Although the new models are the biggest flat top tower cranes designed to date, they are not Linden Comansa’s first big flat top cranes. Before it was acquired by Comansa, Linden introduced the world’s first flat tops in the 1970’s in the form of the 8000 series, with capacities to 50 tonnes. In the 1990s Linden Comansa built a number of special cranes with capacities of up to 60 tonnes.

Linden Comansa LC 8952

The new LC3000 series however is both bigger and more importantly a standard product, so deliveries will be faster and it has been designed to be easier to transport. Even more interestingly they will be priced far more competitively than a bespoke product.

The biggest challenge that Comansa has faced in developing these cranes has been designing the structural components for both performance and practical transportation. This then is the area where most of the innovative thinking has occurred. Both the jib and the tower sections have been patented and can be folded or quickly dismantled for easy – standard transportation, while being easy to erect.

 

The tallest jib section stands 6.2 metres high before it is folded

The top part of the jib section folds down onto the bottom part for transport

 

All of the cranes offer jib lengths from 40 to 80 metres made up of 10 metre jib sections. In order to offer jib tip capacities of up to 15 tonnes at 80 metres radius, the depth of the jibs are big – the largest – the base section – being 6.2 metres high by 10 metres long. In order to transport these structures, they fold in half, with most sections fitting into standard 40ft closed containers. The largest ones require open top containers.

 

Two tower sections are available with either a four metre or 5.5 metre square section, but as with the jib sections, they can be folded or dismantled for easy transport.

 

Most of the jib sections will fold down low enough to fit inside standard closed 40ft shipping containers

 

Two tower sections are available with either a four metre or 5.5 metre square section, but as with the jib sections, they can be folded or dismantled for easy transport.

 

The four metre square mast

In order to keep the variations down, the 5.5 metre tower uses the same four corner quadrants as the four metre tower, but with additional expander sections on each face of the tower to create an open inner core for access ladders etc.

 

The 5.5 metre mast simply adds four extra sections to the four metre mast.

 Freestanding height with the four metre tower is 88 metres, while even greater heights will be possible with the 5.5 metre tower. Given their inbuilt stability the towers need few ties for greater heights, for example only two ties are required to reach almost 200 metres. The new tower sections can also be used with smaller Comansa cranes when high freestanding heights are required.

All cranes in the series come with a 200kw/268hp hoist mechanism with frequency control and 1,450 metres of rope storage capacity. Hooks are reeved through Linden Comansa’s double trolley system with automatic reeving change.

The LC3000 series will be available for order from December 1st with a current delivery time of 10 to 12 months, although this is expected to be reduced to six months once the units are in full production.

Vertikal Comment

This is without question a big crane – to put it in perspective the big Comedil flat tops top out at 40 tonnes and only handle 3.4 tonnes at 84 metres – very impressive in its own right, but a minnow in comparison to the LC3000 at 15 tonnes at 80 metres.

The folding jib sections and tower concepts are also highly innovative, one assumes that Linden Comansa has a few orders on hand for these cranes, with a strong indication of longer term potential?

Source:

http://www.vertikal.net/en/news/story/13634/