Hyundai Engineering & Construction is using 12 Liebherr tower cranes to build the new National Museum of Qatar.
The cranes are owned by Liebherr’s authorised Qatari distributor United Equipment Group, and have been supplied to Hyundai as part of a two-and-a-half year rental agreement. The fleet is helping to speed up the construction process by maximising the use of on-the-ground prefabrication techniques, according to the contractor.
Muaz Ayoub, operations manager for United Equipment, said: “We were involved with Hyundai at the early stages of the project, and we went through every element of the structure on the plan, assessing the weight and advantages of building on top of the structure, or prefabricating on the ground and lifting the elements into place.”
The structure of the museum, which has been designed by French architect Jean Nouvel, is being built primarily from steel and concrete, which will create interlocking, disc-like ‘petals’. Nouvel’s architectural concept for the museum was based on crystal clusters that form in arid, sandy conditions, known as ‘desert roses’.
The Liebherr fleet being used at the site consists of 12t 280 EC-H 12 Litronics, 16t 280 EC-H 16 Litronics, 40t 630 EC-H Litronics, and 1088 HC 40 models on PLC controlled 1000 HC towers.
“There were a number of possible crane configurations we could have used, but we were able to demonstrate that with the heavy lifting capacities of the EC-H range, combined with their long boom reach, it would be most effective to use this model type,” said Ayoub. “This means that the contractor is lifting weights of up to 37t. On-the-ground assembly of the elements typically takes only two days, compared to a possible four days if the assembly is done on the building structure, so this in effect is halving the time.”
Contractor Hyundai was awarded $434mn to build the National Museum of Qatar. Once the project is completed, United Equipment will retain the Liebherr cranes and transport them to another customer.
