Two Comansa 21LC660 tower cranes are working on the construction of the cable-stayed bridge which will join Cebu City and Mactan Island in the Philippines. The Cebu-Cordova Link Expressway bridge will span approximately 650 metres and supported by two towers of 150m height each, and when completed this year, will reduce the journey time between the two cities by up to 40 minutes.
The project was awarded by Cebu Cordova Link Expressway Corporation, a subsidiary of Metro Pacific Tollways Corporation, to Cebu Link Joint Venture, a joint venture between ACCIONA, First Balfour and DMCI.
In order to meet the specific requirements of the project, two Comansa 21LC660 flat-top from the 2100 series have been selected to ensure the maximum performance in lifting heavy loads. Furthermore, the use of 80-metre long booms has made possible to provide a wide and accessible perimeter on-site surrounding the two main pylons on which the bridge is built.
The project was divided into three sections: the Cordova viaduct and causeway, the cable-stayed bridge which is the main bridge of the project, and the access viaducts on Cebu City side.
The first tower (tower 1) of the bridge is located a distance from the coast and is not accessible by land; so the tower crane had to be erected using a crawler crane mounted on a boat. The second tower (tower 2) is also far from the coast, but in this case a temporary island/dock was made using fill material, allowing materials to be delivered and thus enabling the bridge to be built. The tower crane was erected using a crawler crane from this provisional island.
The modular system used by Comansa, with its compact pieces, played a fundamental role in this project by allowing the tower cranes to be erected in such complicated circumstances.
The tower cranes were used for a variety of purposes:
- Lifting heavy equipment to the deck during the construction phase, such as mobile cranes, boom trucks and concrete pumps weighing up to 32 tonnes.
- During concreting operations, in order to lift 5m3 concrete buckets (weighing approximately 12 tonnes) from the pile cap to the deck and moving them in a 40-metre working radius, in order to feed the static pumps used for delivering of concrete to the segment being executed.
- Lifting and placing pylon formwork, prefabricated pylon rebar cages (approximately 8 tonnes), lifting of rebar bundles for structural works, anchor boxes lifting and installation for the stay cables, stay cable installation, among other daily activities carried out during bridge construction etc.
The ability to automatically change reeving, combined with the power lift system, allowed the cranes to easily adapt to a wide range of loading manoeuvres, handling different volumes and weights and taking full advantage of the cranes at all times.
Given the bridge’s location in a country that is affected by typhoons during the rainy season, the tower cranes were designed to support winds of up to 250 km/h. In addition, due to their height and the proximity to Mactan-Cebu Airport, both the cranes and the booms were fitted with safety lights in compliance with civil aviation regulations.
Both tower cranes were struck by lightning during the construction work, but due to their lightning protection, the operators were unharmed and the tower cranes were able to continue working after undergoing mechanical and electrical checks, assisted by the Comansa technical team through their online support.