As the population of Florida continues to grow, the state's infrastructure also is growing to support hundreds of thousands of new residents. This includes the construction of new power plants.
ALL Crane Rental of Florida, a member of the ALL Family of Companies, currently is providing heavy lift equipment for a new power gen facility in the Tampa Bay area.
To set massive steel tubes for the facility's heat exchanger, ALL used a Manitowoc 18000 lattice boom crawler crane. Its 825-ton capacity with MAX-ER attachment makes it ideal for handling heavy loads at great reach.
The 18000 was configured with 280 ft. of main boom, 492,000 lbs. of counterweight, plus an additional 596,000 lbs. on the attached MAX-ER wagon. Lifts were performed at a 55-ft. radius.
Each tube section, called a module, is in excess of 100 ft. long and weighs 560,000 lbs. During the six weeks that the Manitowoc 18000 was on the site, it set 10 total modules. Severe weather struck Florida on multiple occasions during the time that work was taking place, including the landfall of two hurricanes, which extended the work schedule.
Each module was trucked to the site and placed on a Goldhofer via gantry crane then wheeled to the lift zone. The Manitowoc 18000 and an assist crane worked in tandem to first tilt the piece in a vertical position, at which time the assist crane disconnected, and the 18000 completed the lift individually. Each piece had to be lifted approximately 100 ft. in the air, fitted into a slotted rack system, and held in place for several hours while initial connections were made. The lift of each module took approximately 12 hours.
The delicate nature of the tube-within-tube construction of the modules required special considerations. Distinct rigging was needed to protect the integrity of the construction. Also, once a piece was lifted off the Goldhofer and held vertically, it could not be set back down.
"This was delicate work that had to be executed efficiently," said Jim Painter, sales representative of ALL Crane Rental of Florida. "The Manitowoc 18000 was the right tool for the job, and the support from ALL's logistics team in partnership with our customer's engineers helped make for a relatively smooth process, despite a few curveballs from mother nature."
It took almost 60 truckloads to deliver the 18000 to the site. Assembly occurred some distance from the lift zone, and the crane was walked the rest of the way. Steel plates were placed over an underground vault to protect utilities.
For more information, visit www.allcrane.com.
