September 17 - Schwäbisch Gmünd, Germany based crane contractor Helling safely used a Liebherr LTR 1220 crawler crane as counterweight for a Liebherr LR1600/2 crawler on a wind farm project.
Liebherr said the smaller LTR 1220, which was on-site for set-up works, was used as counterweight for lowering and erecting the 600-tonne capacity LR1600/2, rather than using ballast blocks.
Markus Helling, managing director of Helling, said the use of an auxiliary crane for set-up works resulted in a massive reduction in erection times, as it removed the need to add and remove the suspended ballast.
Secondly, "I can save on eight transport units for the ballast, which is only required for the set-up process but not for the hoisting work in between - in other words for erecting and lowering the LR1600/2 and each time it is moved," added Helling.
In this project, the LR1600/2 was used to hoist tower sections on to prefabricated concrete towers, before hoisting the actual wind turbine sections.
