McGovern Crane Hire, located in Derbyshire in central England, has successfully raised a 21-tonne generator on the grounds of the Birmingham Children’s Hospital. This lifting presented a major challenge. The team could have used a large crane with a minimum lifting capacity of 350 to 500 tonnes but the extremely tight space conditions, an aisle of the hospital, made impossible the use of a crane with sufficient performance for a lifting of this weight. The solution found by the Mc Govern teams was using a Demag AC 220-5 all-terrain crane that was compact enough to fit in the driveway, yet with the innovative IC-1Plus control system, it offered sufficient lifting power with asymmetrically configured outriggers.
In order to lift the load with its weight of 22 tonnes, including hook block and lifting tackle, the AC 220-5 was equipped with a counterweight of 51 tonnes. The outriggers were set to meet the needs of the job site. Thus, it was possible to lift the generator at a boom length of 33.3 meters and a radius of 15.0 meters off the lowbed trailer in the driveway to a height of 10.0 meters. It was then lifted over adjacent buildings by slewing the crane directly over the front right rigger which was fully retracted, the crane continued slewing right on the right until over the back right rigger which was extended to three quarters and easily lowered down at the desired location with a final radius of 19.7 meters.
“Thanks to the IC-1 Plus, however we were able to configure the crane to carry out the lift utilizing only 84% of the rated lifting capacity while using reduced counterweight, ”
explains Project Manager Kieran McGovern.
