Tall story: Eisele performs world-first crane jack-up

“Most limits exist only in people’s minds,” says Rocco Schimmel, technical advisor and project manager at German heavy lift specialist Eisele.

It’s an inspirational message for a crane specialist but one which begs a huge number of practical questions.

What if, for example, the crane you would like to use for a particular job has a maximum lifting height of 80 metres and the building you are lifting it from stands at 87.4 metres tall?

For Schimmel, the solution was not – as one might have thought – to use a taller crane, but rather to take the unusual step of lifting a huge eight axle wheeled mobile telescopic Liebherr crane five metres into the air to complete a maintenance operation at the high-profile Deutsche Börse building near Frankfurt.

Photo: Eisele

Speaking to Crane and Transport Briefing shortly after the company caused a stir on social media with pictures of the Liebherr LTM 1650-8.1 seemingly balanced in mid air at the site in Eschborn in September, Schimmel points out that the crane was so high up that the operator needed to use a scissor lift to access the crane’s cab.

Reactions on social media were not all positive, with many comments suggesting that the work could have been done more easily and safely using traditional methods.

In fact, Schimmel says, the crane was carefully lifted using an Enerpac JS 250 jack up system while a load bearing and stable substructure of barrel blocks was built beneath its support legs – a solution the team only arrived at after completing detailed weight calculations which it then checked through correspondence with Liebherr.

Photo: Eisele

Eisele, which is part of the Hũffermann Group, was hired to replace the engines for the ventilation and air conditioning system on the roof of Deutsche Börse’s 23-storey Cube office building which is located on the town’s narrow tree-lined Mergenthaleralee. The engines had a maximum load of around 6.5 tonnes.

“Using a rather huge lattice boom crane would be common practice using the parameters,” Schimmel says. “The LTM 1650-8.1 was fit for the job due to its dimensions as road space was restricted. Further rigging time was also limited because the time for road closure was rather short.”

Instead, the team opted to use the jack-up system to lift the crane the extra few metres needed, something it says is a world first.

Photo: Eisele

“Using the jack-up system was relatively easy, taking into account all of the conditions,” said Schimmel. “The jack-up system is rather new in the Hũffermann Group and has been used for numerous jobs of different kinds. The idea of jacking up a crane was already considered for quite a while.”

The LTM 1650-8.1 was driven to the site and assembled in the T3YV2EN configuration on the narrow construction site. After the crane was lifted using the jack-up system, an auxiliary crane was used to position a substructure of jack-up barrel blocks.

“The jack-up system enabled us to do the job in the most efficient and safe manner,” Schimmel says. “This system will be used again any time if we need it.”