The 800-tonne Liebherr LR 1800-1.0 is a powerful crawler crane designed for jobs with a luffing jib and derrick system for industrial plants, power plant construction and the petrochemicals industry.
Liebherr has delivered more than ten LR 1800-1.0 cranes to customers in Europe, North America and LR 1800-1.0 Asia. All of them feature the standard 650-tonne S head section and are used for heavy hoisting work in industry and for wind turbine erection jobs.
To push the load capacity limits of the LR 1800-1.0, Liebherr designed a new 800-tonne heavy-duty head and suspended a 1,000-tonne test load from the hook of the crane. A new hook block also played a major role in the test. It can hoist up to 1,000 tonnes and, in addition to the Liebherr 800-tonne crane, can also be used for the 1,000-tonne LR 11000.
For the test hoist, the LR 1800-1.0 was set up with 70 tonnes of central ballast, 170 tonnes of slewing platform ballast and 228 tonnes of derrick ballast as well as a 33-metre derrick boom. A ballast trailer was used for the derrick ballast. However, the test could also have been carried out with suspended ballast. The ballast trailer is also new and will be available for delivery shortly.
For the acceptance testing procedures on crane equipment, the test loads are around 25 percent above the values in the lifting capacity table to ensure a high level of safety when the crane is actually in action. The new 800-tonne head and the new hook block passed the test with the 1,000-tonne test load.
Jens Könneker, product manager-crawler cranes, Liebherr, said: “The standard head is absolutely adequate for the vast majority of jobs. However, the LR 1800-1.0 is designed to produce its maximum lifting capacity in real-world conditions as it can hoist 800 tonnes with a 9-metre radius on a 57-metre boom. That gives it plenty of scope for real applications. That is why we built the 800-tonne head. The new hook block can be used on both the LR 1800-1.0 and the LR 11000. That is very important for customers who have both crane models. It enables them to use this block for both cranes flexibly and economically. As a result of the higher rope pull on the LR 11000, it can hoist up to 1,000 tonnes.”
