GTK1100 for difficult demolition in Germany

Rental company and lifting specialist Scholl looked at mobile and crawler crane options to dismantle a 45 t chimney top from a 100 m tall chimney in the city of Ludwigshafen, before choosing the GTK1100.

Jürgen Jensen, the project manager at Scholl in charge of the Ludwigshafen job, said there were prohibiting factors that ruled out other alternatives.

The first choice for Scholl was to use a large all-terrain crane, with full luffing jib and a man basket attached to the hook. A demolition crew would exit the basket to the chimney structure to begin a manual demolition. However, the local government authorities at Neustadt an der Weinstrasse did not approve this lift plan.

Scholl approached GTK owner Wiesbauer at this stage about using the crane for the project and also examined putting either a large crawler or all-terrain crane with luffing jib on the job. However, a lack of available ground space on the project eliminated the crawler and all-terrain crane options because it was impossible to rig a luffing jib. With an outrigger base of just 18 m x 18 m and only a few trailers to transport the crane to site, the GTK was a natural choice for the Ludwigshafen job. A further benefit was that the GTK requires far less ground preparation and offers less ground pressure than alternatives.

For the lift, Scholl and Wiesbauer attached a Modulift lifting beam to the GTK’s hook block and attached it to four fixing points on the chimney top. Including rigging, the GTK lifted 47.2 t at 100 m without a problem. The crane has a maximum lift capacity of 95 t and a maximum tip height of 143 m.