High standards ensure fast construction progress

• Demag crane installations support major road building project in Brazil
• All-terrain portal cranes negotiate slight gradients
• Short project planning and delivery times thanks to standardisation

Düsseldorf, 17. May 2013  A total of 14 Demag portal cranes are being used by the Brazilian project engineering company SPMAR to complete one of the largest and most symbolic road construction projects in Latin America. The crane installations are used for key transport tasks for production and construction site logistics for completing the Eastern section of the Rodoanel Màrio Covas, São Paulo. This 180-km-long ring road circumnavigates the city of millions and is intended to reduce the very high congestion of the existing road network.

In parts, the road is constructed on columns and supporting girders. This requires a special construction method, for which the portal cranes assume major tasks: they transport girders, supports and other load-bearing elements to the place of installation.
Dr Lars Brzoska, Vice President and Managing Director of Terex Material Handling states: “Demag crane technology is supporting the rapid implementation of this road building project. We are pleased that with our products we have been able to make a major contribution to the implementation of this infrastructure project that is so important for the region.“

Particular demands were made on the engineering of the drives because the runway also includes curved sections. Terex Material Handling therefore also supplied portal cranes that are able to negotiate curves, and can also negotiate slight gradients over the course of the road.

Terex Material Handling in Brazil has assumed co-ordination of the crane project, engineering of the crane installations and the structural steelwork engineering and assembly. The central components of the cranes such as hoists, controls and drives come from the German production facility in Wetter/Ruhr.
Vigold Georg, Managing Director Terex Material Handling in Brazil states: “With Demag portal cranes, we offer universal solutions for numerous transport tasks. Thanks to global standardisation, our customers benefit from tried-and-tested crane components and extraordinarily short delivery times.“

About the construction project
The metropolitan area of São Paulo in Brazil is one of the most densely populated conurbations in the world. Approx. 20.5 million people live here – this makes the city the largest in the southern hemisphere. The roads in and around São Paulo are chronically congested. The Rodoanel Màrio Covas motorway, which is 180 km long and surrounds São Paulo in the form of a ring road is intended to provide a remedy. This Southern ring has been completed; the inauguration of the 43 km Eastern ring is planned for 2014.

This part of the road section passes through an area of outstanding natural beauty and so the section is being built on stilts, in a similar way to a bridge. Here a new process is being used in which a lattice-boom crane positions columns and lays girders on top of them. Since the terrain is impassable, the girders and other assembly parts are transported by portal cranes to the place of installation. The rail-mounted cranes travel on the outer lanes of the already completed road sections. The rails are extended as construction progresses so that the crane can always reach the place where the construction material is installed.

14 Portal cranes work under harsh operating conditions
For the construction project, Terex Material Handling supplied 14 Demag ZVPE double-girder full-portal cranes. Eight identically crane installations are designed to work simultaneously on four construction sites of the road building project. With a span of 17 m, they are each able to serve three lanes for one direction of travel of the future ring road and are used to transport prefabricated concrete parts. Equipped with a double-rail crab and a DR 20 rope hoist, they have a load capacity of 32 tonnes. The lifting height is seven metres.

The special requirement: the drive units and brakes were designed to accommodate gradients of 2.5 %. In addition, the crane installations were configured in such a way that they follow the curve-shaped course of the road section.

Moreover, the cranes meet all requirements associated with outdoor use in the sub-tropical climate zone and the harsh environmental conditions of construction site operation.

A further six full-portal cranes, each with a span of 18 m, are used for lifting and transport tasks in the production plant for the construction materials. Four full-portal cranes with a load capacity of 32 t and two cranes with a load capacity of 16 t travel on three parallel crane runways measuring 360 m in length. Thanks to their compact design, they can serve practically every point of the approximately 28,000 m² production and storage area.

Standardised portal cranes
The crane installations installed for the road building project in São Paulo were planned and designed in accordance with the high global Demag standard for portal cranes. On the basis of tried-and-tested crane components, international teams of engineers developed standardised solutions for portal cranes that focus on universal areas of application and can be adapted in line with requirements via additional localised options such as radio control, crane distance controls and two-crab operation. Demag customers thus benefit from high-quality and extremely reliable crane components, shortened planning and delivery times and, as a consequence, higher production efficiencies. Important reasons why the Brazilian project engineering company opted to use Demag crane technology.
The availability and efficient use of crane installations is also guaranteed by a large network of qualified service engineers.

About Terex Material Handling
Terex Corporation is one of the world’s leading suppliers of crane technology with Demag industrial cranes and crane components. The core competence of the Terex Material Handling business group lies in the development, design and production of technically sophisticated cranes, hoists and components and the provision of services for these products. The business group manufactures in 16 countries on five continents and is present in more than 60 countries, reaching customers in more than 100 countries.

Terex Corporation is a diversified global manufacturer of a broad range of equipment. A core activity of Terex Corporation is the provision of reliable, customer-driven solutions for many applications, including the construction, infrastructure, shipping, transport, quarrying, mining, refining, energy, utility and manufacturing industries. Terex reports in five business segments: Aerial Work Platforms; Construction; Cranes; Material Handling & Port Solutions; and Materials Processing Terex Financial Services offers a wide range of products and services to assist in the acquisition of Terex equipment. Please visit our websites at www.demagcranes.de and www.terex.com for further information.