A pair of Liebherr flat-top climbing cranes are being used on the 82-storey Lokhandwala Minerva tower building overlooking the famous Mahalaxmi Racecourse in Mumbai.
Currently under construction by Larsen & Toubro, the cranes are being used in what project manager Palwinder Singh describes as an “unusual configuration” to suit the construction sequence.
During the initial planning stages, the consultants considered using two heavy-duty flat/luffing jib cranes to feed the materials.
“Acute space constraints and logistics are the biggest challenges on this project,” said Singh.
“There is also the fact there is an existing tower newly built next to the site, and running behind the site is a railway line.
“We made the decision that the selected tower crane must have high speed and lifting capacity of more than 5 Mt and should be able to climb within the available lift shaft. We opted for Liebherr, which addressed all the criteria raised by L & T for Minerva.”
The two German-built 202 EC-B 10 Litronic climbing cranes were deployed with shorter-than-standard jibs, in order to fit within the confines of the job site.
“Standard jibs on this model are 65m, but we have opted for two 40m jibs because of the site constrictions, and we have started one crane at a height of 42m and the other at 48m, to ensure the two jibs overfly each other.
Both cranes have been located inside the lift shafts of the buildings and will climb with the structure, which will reach an eventual height of 300m. The crane itself has a maximum hook height of 63.1m. The higher of the two units will be working at 320m when the building tops out.
