crane industry news

A large Rough Terrain crane working on an overpass in Tacoma, Washington tipped over yesterday bringing work to a halt. The crane, a 100 ton (91 tonne) three axle Link Belt TC80100 owned by Mid Mountain contractors of Kirkland Washington, was working on the laying of the last segment of track for the Sounder commuter rail extension that will run from Tacoma to Lakewood in 2012.

Babcock and ZPMC commissioned the new 1,000 tonne gantry crane today at the Rosyth dockyard in Scotland. The 90 metre high 120 metre span crane lifted a mere 150 tonne load today in front of 1,200 people to kick off the formal load testing programme.

A tower crane operator died yesterday at London’s Olympic Village site in Stamford while climbing down from his cab. The man, said to be 65, was discovered in the tower of his crane, some feedback from the site suggests that he may have slipped and fell causing serious head injuries.

Liebherr Ehingen has installed a new highly efficient, environmentally friendly paint system for large crane components. The aim of the investment is to apply a top quality paint finish to large components in a continuous process -economically. Liebherr says that the installation includes the largest capacity paint conveyor system in the world, in that it can handle individual items of up to 50 tonnes in weight.

The team at Facelift took a special ultra high resolution photograph at Vertikal Days this week.

Lifting Technologies, headquartered in Missoula, Montana has a nice working relationship with Industrial Training International. They supply crane suspended manbaskets at ITI Training Centers in Woodland, Washington and Memphis, Tennessee while hundreds of project engineers, operators, and riggers utilize them each year in crane and rigging training programs.

Terex says that its new Challenger 3180 all terrain is the only 3-axle, 60-tonne capacity class machine currently available that is designed for one-man operation. The new machine also represents a new approach for naming crane models, based on load moment rating rather than maximum safe working load.
Across the industry, the model names of mobile cranes have for years indicated their maximum rated capacity, such as the AC 60 – 60t capacity – which the new Challenger 3180 replaces in the Terex product line up.

Ten Manitowoc cranes are working on the construction of a remote dam in South Africa. The De Hoop (“The Hope”) Dam will be 81 m tall and stretch more than 1 km over the Steelpoort River in Limpopo, South Africa. It is being built for the South African Department of Water Affairs.

A crane operator is in an intensive-care hospital unit after receiving an electric shock, when the boom of his crane contacted overhead power lines in Toronto, Canada yesterday.

The man, said to be in his 30s, sustained second-degree burns to his arms but his injuries are not life-threatening.

SOLITEC®, recently unveiled at the Interalpin 2011 Trade Show in Austria, is TEUFELBERGER‘s latest generation of round strand ropes. It stands for SOLId TEChnology, that is, long service life, minimal initial elongation, and highest flexibility. Ultimate traveling comfort and quietest operation are the result of a refined, innovative manufacturing process that has allowed TEUFELBERGER’s engineers to largely cancel out a rope’s initial elongation as early as in the production stage.