New 1000 tonne lattice boom crawler crane for German rental firm is the company’s most powerful crane to date.

Bergheim, Germany-based crane rental firm Wasel has bought a 1000 tonne Liebherr LR 11000 to work on industry, public infrastructure and wind farm projects. The crane has already been used on its first job at a wind farm in North Rhine-Westphalia.

“The lifting capacity requirements in industry and for public infrastructure projects are on the rise,” explained Matthias Wasel, who runs the business with his brother Thomas. “The towers for wind turbines are also increasing in height all the time. That is why we decided to buy Liebherr’s 1000 tonne crane. It means that we are absolutely ready for the next generation of wind turbines.”

The LR 11000 joins four other large Liebherr lattice boom crane in Wasel’s fleet. “It is a benefit to stick with a single manufacturer for large cranes in terms of operation, transport and maintenance,” said Matthias Wasel.

Wind farm work for LR 11000

The LR 11000’s first job was on a wind farm in Coesfeld, North Rhine-Westphalia, where it was used to assemble a wind turbine with a hub height of 170 metres. Julian Schmidt, technical director at Wasel, said, “The powerful SL10 boom was an important criterion for the LR 11000. And we need all its power here at this wind farm. 136 tonnes including the hook block and fastening equipment had to be hoisted to an extreme height of 170 metres with a radius of 29 metres.”

For this job, the crane was set up with Liebherr’s SL10DF2BV wind turbine system, a main boom of 162 metres, a twelve-metre fixed jib, 210 tonnes of turntable ballast, 90 tonnes of central ballast, and 450 tonnes of derrick ballast. “The benefits of the V-Frame and VarioTray when working with suspended ballast in the wind industry were clearly demonstrated during this very first job,” added Schmidt.

The V-frame ballast system is a hydraulically adjustable folding frame which enables the ballast radius of the LR 11000 to be infinitely adjusted between 13 and 30 metres. A rigid ballasting system is no longer required for large radii. VarioTray is a small ballast pallet, which can be unbolted quickly and easily when necessary, avoiding the need to stacking and unstack ballast slabs. The large ballast pallet is only required to raise and lower the lattice boom.

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