Germany’s Hüffermann Krandienst, Eisele and Thömen Spedition have been installing nine new steel superstructures at Ferdinandstor in Hamburg, Germany, calling on Cometto equipment for the job.
With each bridge weighing around 120 tonnes, Hüffermann Krandienst, Eisele and Thömen Spedition used SPMT units and hydraulic jack-up systems for precise positioning of the heavy trough bridges. Due to limited space in the city centre, the companies stored the bridges in the roundabouts on the outer Alster side of the city and then moved them in towards Ferdinandstor when required.
Two parallel-coupled SPMT units – a six-axle and a four-axle with a power pack unit (PPU) – were each combined with 2x2 JS250 jack-up systems from Enerpac. This allowed the bridges to be installed at an angle of up to 43 degrees. “What is especially challenging is that we have to place the bridges on the SPMTs at a 45 degree or 25 degree angle, with only very narrow tolerances within the travel paths inside the bridge channel,” explained Rocco Schimmel, head of crane service, heavy installation and project engineering at Eisele.
A three-point bearing system supported the SPMTs and jack-up systems, while a third SPMT unit transported the bridges from interim storage. Seven mobile cranes were also on hand to support the operation.
“The bridges have to be levelled to the centimetre – and that works perfectly. We can lift them to the millimetre, fantastic!” added Schimmel. “We have already used Cometto axles several times, and everything always works flawlessly – no complaints at all from a technical perspective.”
Originally expected to take five days, the project was wrapped up in just three days.
Last month, HLPFI reported that Gradito Oleodinamica had deployed Cometto modules for a tunnel boring machinery (TBM) move in Italy.
