The new, most powerful Manitowoc 31000 crawler crane has completed its first commercial project, put to work by Chunjo Construction South Korea at the Posco E&C liquefied natural gas plant to lift a 650 tonne silo.
Chunjo is one of the biggest crane rental companies in the world, and they chose the Manitowoc 31000 for its innovative Variable Position Counterweight system, which gives it great pulling power with minimal dimensions.
In fact, this operation on the plant in South Korea was hindered by the presence of a wall next to the 31000, which limited its movement. For this reason, all 55 metres of the machine’s boom were used, up to the highest corner, in order to bring the load as close as possible to the crane, and therefore minimising possible swinging.
The 31000’s VPC system reduced dimensions of the crane and the ground preparation to a minimum, thanks to the counterweight in mid-air instead of a carriage counterweight. The VPC automatically positions the 31000’s counterweight, adapting it to the load to be lifted, starting from 8 metres of length when completely retracted, and extending up to a maximum of 29 metres.
The high flexibility of the powerful 31000 also allows for dismantling, moving and re-assembly in only four weeks, which is really surprising for a machine with such a high payload.
To follow, a brief summary of the technical features of the Manitowoc 31000:
- 2300-tonne maximum payload
- 110-metre main boom, with maximum boom extension of 138 metres
- Main boom + mobile boom 209 metres
- The biggest crawler crane designed and made by Manitowoc
- Variable Position Counterweight system (VPC) – self-supporting counterweight system
- Two Cummins 447 kW diesel engines
- Four independent track support pivots