Manitowoc’s EnCORE team has fully renovated a Manitowoc 4600 lattice-boom crawler crane in Angra dos Reis, Rio de Janeiro.
The refurbishment took 22 months and involved 12 EnCORE experts from Brazil and the USA. Ricardo Cunha, product support manager at Manitowoc in Brazil, explained that the crane was kept idle outdoors for almost six years and suffered severe corrosion damage from direct exposure to rain, extreme heat, and salty sea winds.
”As we disassembled the equipment, we needed to replace parts of the structure and more than 600 critical components, including motors, pumps, valves, and sensors. Some of these parts were not easy to find — it is a unique crane that was mounted in a ringer configuration. There are not many others like it in the world,” Cunha said.
The uniqueness of the Manitowoc 4600 is what made Eletronuclear opt for a complete refurbishment instead of purchasing a replacement crane.
The crane’s main boom is positioned on the ringer, supporting the counterweight. The configuration ensures greater lifting capacity in larger operating radii when compared with other similar cranes. The crane will erect parts weighing up to 72.5 tonnes at a height of 42 m and a radius of up to 60 m.
“Because of the ringer configuration, the 600-tonne lift capacity Manitowoc 4600 crane can lift very heavy metal parts used to construct the plant’s reactor from a long distance. If they had opted for new mobile equipment, they would have to use a crane with much higher capacity to carry out the same task,” Cunha explained.
In addition to replacing parts and components, the EnCORE team has updated the crane’s operating system and installed a modern load monitoring system, providing the operator with crucial information
The crane can now be used to build Angra 3—the third and final reactor at the Angra Nuclear Power Plant in Rio de Janeiro.
It was purchased by the Brazilian state company Eletronuclear in 1982 and used to construct Angra 2, the country’s second nuclear plant.
