New Type of Crane
Liebherr extends its range of heavy lift offshore cranes with the CAL 64000 – 1500 Litronic. This heavy lift offshore crane, specially developed by Liebherr for the company Beluga Hochtief Offshore, will be applied from 2012 on the Innovation, a special jack-up vessel for the quicker assembly of offshore wind power stations. With this innovative jack-up vessel assembly and maintenance times will be significantly reduced, thus productivity increased.
The CAL 64000 – 1500 Litronic achieves a maximum lifting capacity of 1,500 t at a maximum working radius of 31.5 m. The boom length of the crane currently on order is 105 m. The deadweight of the new large size crane is 1,500 t at a lifting height of over 120m above deck.
The special feature of the heavy lift crane is its slewing ring with an outer diameter of 13 m. The slewing bearing alone weighs over 100 t. Moreover, the crane is designed as crane around the leg: it is built around one of the vessel’s four legs. To date the CAL 64000 – 1500 is the first heavy lift offshore crane in the world to be built according to this design.
The crane is able to rotate 360° around the vessel’s leg and offers a relatively small obstruction area of 12 m, which – together with a slewing ring inner diameter of 11 m – allows for ideal positioning of the crane around the vessel’s leg. Due to the special twin boom design, the boom can even be lowered and parked over one of the vessel’s front legs. This solution prevents the crane from obstructing free space on deck which can be used for loading the jack-up vessel. Besides the powerful electro-hydraulic drive with 4,000 kW, the Litronic control system of Liebherr as well as the integrated power management provides optimum performance in all operating conditions. As an option a slewing unit (rotator) for loads of up to 600 t is available for the CAL 64000 – 1500.