The company, Marr Contracting, used the Favelle Favco tower crane earlier this month to undertake the 155-tonne lift – claimed to be the world’s heaviest tower crane lift – at a height of 318 metres for the towers of the 1915 Çanakkale Bridge, under construction in Turkey. The bridge will have a total length of 4,608 metres, a world-record-breaking central span of 2,023 metres and tower heights of 318 metres.
It took approximately 30 minutes to lift a 155-tonne piece of the upper cross beam (UCB) to its position 318 metres above sea level. The installation of the centre section of the UCB on the Asian side of the Çanakkale Strait, completed a major milestone in the construction of the bridge, with the lift taking place at midnight on Sunday 7th June 2020. The European side was completed 24 hours later, with the final centrepieces installed on both sides of the bridge at a final height of 318m on Monday 8th June 2020.
Marr said that the unparalleled lifting capacity of the Favelle Favco M2480D HLL cranes have been a game changer for this project and will potentially change the way the industry looks at how bridges can be built, as well as a host of other large projects.
Marr won the contract for the bridge in 2017 with a construction approach that has enabled the tower stage of the project has been completed more quickly than originally thought, by lifting fewer but larger pieces.
The engineering solution that made the world-record lift possible was one of the reasons Daelim-Limak-SK E&C-Yapi Merkezi (DLSY) Joint Venture awarded the craneage contract to Marr Contracting International.
DLSY challenged the Marr team to develop a strategy that would decrease construction time and associated risk.
The Marr team worked with the DLSY project team to develop a methodology that makes use of the M2480D HLL crane’s capacity to lift heavier modularised components instead of the more traditional approach of lifting smaller components one-by-one and then welding on site.
Two of Marr’s M2480D cranes have been on site since last year constructing the bridge’s 318m high towers.
Deputy project manager Alper Alemdaroglu said that DLSY JV wanted a heavy lifting partner who could think outside the box to make their vision for how they wanted to build the bridge a reality. “What has impressed us most is their collaborative approach to finding a solution that suited our construction methodology and programme, and then delivering it,” he said.
Marr Contracting managing director Simon Marr said: “DLSY knew what they wanted, and they were also open to a non-traditional heavy lifting solution. As experts in construction, the joint venture partners respected our expertise in heavy lifting and together we have been able to construct the tower stage of the project in record time.”
He added: “The unparalleled lifting capacity of our M2480D HLL cranes have been a game changer for this project and will potentially change the way our industry looks at how bridges can be built, as well as a host of other large-scale projects. We are using the same way of thinking to challenge methodology on the construction of other projects including metro train stations, data centres, large commercial construction, energy construction and working refineries."
Marr’s work on the project is due to be completed in December 2020 or January 2021 and the bridge is due to open on 18th March 2022.
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