Felbermayr spreads wings

A unique project was successfully concluded at the end of December in the Romanian capital of Bucharest. It included the transportation of three, 20 metre high wings with a total weight of more than 100 tonnes, and the subsequent erection at the "Piata Presei Libere".

Advertisement

"The project dates back to 1999," explains Marius Tudose from the Felbermayr Bucharest location. At that time, the Minister of Culture had organized a contest. The goal was to find a symbol of the fight against communism. The results are three winged structures in steel. The work of art is 20 metres high and has a weight of more than 100 tonnes.

Winged transport with obstacles

The uniqueness of the operation started with transporting of the wings.
The smaller of the wings could be transported on the main road from the place of departure, at Ploiesti, to Bucharest. The two larger wings, about ten metres wide, covered the journey of some 60 kilometres by motorway. The reason for this was not the width, but the transport height of 5.2 metres. This would have made it impossible to go under the many footbridges. But even the drive on the motorway was accompanied by many obstacles - such large parts had never previously been transported on this route: "At the motorway entrances and exits, we had to set the wings on elephant feet and build a wooden base to be able to transport the wings over the crash barriers.Another difficulty was to find the proper centre of gravity of the wings - and for this reason the wings had to be repeatedly shifted on the trailer," commented Tudose.

Perfectly coordinated lifting technology

The specialists from Felbermayr met further challenges at the destination. It was at this point that the true complexity of the irregular wing geometry was revealed. Three cranes were therefore used simultaneously for each of the three elements: As they had to be rotated in the air, in order to allow safe and correct placement of the wings on the foundation. This required detailed studies in advance. These were represented by computer animation. However, to allow the complexity of the lifts to be accomplished in practice, a large number of computer animations were created in advance. Nevertheless it was still exciting when it happened. As Felbermayr task-force leader, Gabriel Puscoiu, pointed out, "You can never exclude differences between theory and practice with such projects." 

Klaus Ruhland from the Felbermayr Project Department explained that: "In order to reduce the residual risk to a minimum, it was decided to use a single manufacturer for the three cranes: Three Liebherr telescopic cranes, with maximum lifting capacities of 200, 220 and 250 tonnes."  This was necessary in order to achieve the best possible interaction in respect of lifting and rotating speed synchronization which, as Ruhland further explained, is due to the largely identical design of the engines, gearboxes and electronic controls utilized.