Regardless of the terrain, Liebherr Cranes showed that even in the toughest places, their equipment can rise.
A new educational centre focused on climate change, complete with cable car, is currently being built on France’s largest glacier, the “Mer de Glace”.
For the centre to take shape a helicopter delivered one tower section after another to the Montenvers mountain station up at an altitude of 1,913 metres, after the foundation anchor was secured to the massif.
Four assembly engineers from Liebherr's partner FT Montage and six flight assistants from Heliswiss International took delivery of the parts from overhead, connected them and worked their way up to a tower height of over 40 metres. A spectacular panorama presents itself: rock faces, trees and ice fields sparkle in the sunshine. But the engineers have little time to appreciate the views from the foot of Mont Blanc, the highest mountain in the Alps and the European Union. The helicopter is on its approach with the crane’s slewing platform.
“Assembly has been a true team effort that wouldn't have been possible without mutual trust,” says Guillaume Riband, Operations Manager France Centre East at Vinci Construction France.
The crane, with a 45-metre jib and a hook height of 42 metres, will support the construction of the new cable car station and the International Glacier and Climate Interpretation Centre until June 2023.
One of the biggest challenges the construction company faced was selecting the right crane. Originally, the site required a crane in the 250 metric tonnes range due to the loads that needed to be moved. This value is based on radius (m) and lifting capacity (t) and serves to classify the size of the crane. As such a crane is too heavy for helicopter assembly, Liebherr worked with customers Solumat GAT ( Materials Division, Vinci Group) and CBCE Grenoble (a local construction company that is part of the Vinci Group) to find economic alternatives. Depending on temperature and altitude, the helicopter can move a maximum of 3,800 kilograms.
Thanks to the right choice of crane, good preparation and a well-coordinated team, the assembly on Mont Blanc has gone smoothly. The unusual assembly of the 150 EC-B took around eight hours. During this time, a powerful Kamov KA 32 A11 BC heavy-lift helicopter from Heliswiss International flew back and forth 30 times to deliver all the crane parts and tower system elements.
The delivery site needed to be easily accessible for trucks and offer sufficient space. The location chosen was an area in Chamonix on the Arveyron River, about 3.5 kilometres from the Montenvers mountain station. This relatively short distance helped to keep flight times, and therefore refuelling, to a minimum. “Precision planning has been key to this all-round successful assembly,” Guillaume Riband concludes.
This is the second successful helicopter assembly for Heliswiss International and Liebherr. In 2015, they used a helicopter to transport a 150 EC-B 6 flat-top crane onto the Zugspitze to work on the construction of the new Eibsee cable car station. Up at an altitude of 2,975 metres, the crane marked Germany's highest construction site back then.
The 150 EC-B 8 won't quite reach such heights in France, but sub-zero temperatures are expected here in the winter months as well. This isn't a problem for Liebherr tower cranes, which are designed for such conditions.
