Kraemer North America, Plain, Wis., was hired by Illinois DOT to construct a new 2,482 foot-long bridge that spans the Mississippi River between Savanna, Ill., and Sabula, Iowa. The Savanna-Sabula Bridge will replace an 84-year-old truss bridge once its complete.
After developing a plan to construct two 958.5 ft-long outer plate girder spans and a central 546-foot-long tied-arch span, Kraemer realized a barge-mounted crane would be needed to access the lifts for the tied-arch span.
The company consulted Dawes Rigging & Crane Rental, a member of the ALL Family of Companies, about mounting a crane on the tight working quarters of a barge, but still provide high-capacity lifts to great heights to aid in bridge construction.
Previously, many contractors used Manitowoc RINGER cranes for a barge-mounted solution, due to the round RINGER shape that helped stabilize the crane and distribute the weight of the machine. However, Milwaukee-based Dawes suggested renting the newer Manitowoc MLC300 crawler featuring the variable position counterweight (VPC) and VPC-MAX heavy-lift attachment. The crane can automatically adjust its counterweight to provide greater stability for each lift, and it has a smaller footprint than previous-generation cranes.
“With the VPC, the MLC300 is always finding a new center of gravity based on the load that’s on the hook,” said Patrick Shea, project manager for Kraemer. “This crane has helped us to achieve almost zero list while working on the barge, keeping every lift level while minimizing the barge’s rotation. And the VPC saves space, too—most crawler cranes with the required length of boom would not have fit on the barge.”
The MLC300 is now erected on a barge in the Mississippi River measuring 70 feet by 195 feet. It’s lifting 76-ton arch rib sections to a height of 165 feet using 295 feet of main boom, all from a 100-foot radius. To meet the lift radius and pick weight requirements on the job, Kraemer’s Manitowoc MLC300 crawler had to be outfitted with its optional VPC-MAX attachment, which enhances the crane’s capacity and enables additional boom and jib length combinations.
Construction of the $80 million Savanna-Sabula Bridge replacement began in March 2017 and is scheduled for completion in 2018. The new bridge will span 2,463 ft in length and will meet modern-day deck-width standards to improve the flow of two-lane traffic.
