PALFINGER: The Star of the Team — Compact Crawler Crane Enhances Salzburg Soccer Experience

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Fans cheering and an exciting match characterize a really good stadium experience. So the Red Bull Arena can welcome even more ball sports fans in the coming season, the stadium's stand was extended at the end of December 2022. To do this, nine concrete elements, each weighing 1.3 tons, had to be lifted over the stand. There were a number of challenges to overcome: The low stadium entrance, with a clearance of just 2.83 meters and a width of 2.87 meters, narrow aisles, barely any space to turn around and precise specifications regarding the statics of the load-bearing surface, which allow a maximum load of 16 tons. “It quickly became clear to us that this was a challenging job that a standard four-axle truck with a crane would never have been able to handle. It would not have been able to enter the stadium or meet the weight requirements,” says Markus Egger, foreman at construction company Doll, which carried out the expansion of the stand. “The only logical and feasible solution was the PALFINGER PCC 57.002.”

Millimeter accuracy without restricting capability

The PALFINGER crawler crane makes it easy to separate the crane unit from the crawler chassis. That is how it was able to pass through the difficult low-clearance stadium entrance. Using its own outriggers, it was able to gradually shift along the narrow aisles to its operating locations while remaining optimally balanced and stabilized. Once there and re-connected to the chassis, it did a brilliant job. So as not to damage the first floor of the stand in the stadium while the concrete elements were being precisely lifted into place, the work had to be carried out with millimeter precision on all sides. No problem for the compact crane. For Egger, this was the first but not the last time he deployed a PCC 57.002: “Whether in the stadium or for other special applications with low access heights, such as in car parks — we are impressed with the compact size combined with excellent maneuverability of the PALFINGER crawler crane. It is also possible to drive the crane with a suspended load. This is definitely a solution we can recommend.”