August 8 - Austria's Prangl is claiming sole responsibility for the entire transport and lifting logistics involved in the construction of the second largest sugar silo in Europe.

The new silo, scheduled to be commissioned in October 2011, with a capacity of 70,000 tonnes of crystal sugar is now under construction at the Agrana sugar works in Tulln. The reinforced concrete storage facility with a diameter of 49 m and a height of 52 m will be the second largest of its kind in Europe.

Prangl states that lifting and transport logistics play an especially important role in enabling the completion of a project of this kind on schedule and believes that assigning the overall responsibility to a single partner will certainly prove to be the key to success.

Prangl's capabilities were first tested with the transport of the oversized glue-laminated timber trusses with lengths up to 49.35 m which required transport vehicles with overall lengths up to 54.35 m, leading to hefty traffic management activities.

At the construction site, the trusses, each weighing 16.5 tonnes had to be raised into position carefully and precisely down to the millimetre, so it was helpful that strongest telescopic crane in Austria was available, says Prangl.

Equipped with 140 tonnes of ballast and a 54 m luffing jib, the 500-tonne telescoping crane was erected to an effective length of 112 m.

The crane was also use to raise two lorry-mounted work platforms into place, each of which was needed to install the filling platform at a height of approximately 49 m. Prangl lifted a 62 m and a 53 m lorry-mounted work platform into the silo shell to be able to carry out the desired detail work.