Tadano crawler powers Toggenburger’s bridge lift

Toggenburger had to lift and remove parts of the old demolished Aabachbrücke bridge, each weighing up to 150 tonnes, and then set the new bridge and its net weight of 230 tonnes down in place in Niederuster, close to Zurich. Photo: Tadano

Toggenburger + Co took on a highly complex bridge installation project in Niederuster, near Zurich in Switzerland, using a Tadano CC 38.650-1 lattice boom crawler crane.

Tasked with removing sections of the old Aabachbrücke bridge and precisely lifting the new 230 tonne structure into place, the Swiss crane service provider had to overcome tight space constraints and delicate load requirements.

Due to the fact that the parallelogram-shaped element was a sensitive load, the maximum permissible forces at the attachment points had to be adhered to without any deviation. To achieve this the Toggenburger team integrated strand jacks into the slinging gear to make it possible to control each line individually so as to distribute the load evenly and prevent damage to the structure.

Due to the fact that the parallelogram-shaped element was a sensitive load, the maximum permissible forces at the attachment points had to be adhered to without any deviation. Photo: Tadano

It took Toggenburger 20 trucks to transport the CC 38.650-1 to the work site on the Seestraße road in Niederuster. Once the crane components were there, four assembly technicians and an AC 140 assist crane set up the CC 38.650-1 within two and a half days with an LSL_2 configuration and a 66 metre boom. Together with a full counterweight consisting of 165 tonnes of counterweight, 50 tonnes of central ballast and 325 tonnes of superlift counterweight, the crane was ready to start lifting.

“Since space at the work site was extremely tight, the crane’s Vario-SL really came in handy, as it mades it possible to maneuver the Superlift counterweight over terrain that was about a meter higher,” said Manuel Widmer, large-scale project manager, Toggenburger.