Death Row HVAC Replacement
Christopher Erickson, Midwest Crane Services
Midwest Crane was awarded the bid because of our competitive pricing and comprehensive knowledge of the work being performed. The 3D lift plans created gave our customer an added level of confidence that we had an understanding of what the project required. 3D Lift Plan was utilized to determine crane size, crane configuration, crane setup in the tight quarters our team would experience, ground bearing pressures, and rigging requirements.
This project was a component of a full HVAC renovation on the State Penitentiary Death Row Facility. The building was fully underground with only the roof exposed. Nonetheless, the facility was elevated 20’ above standard ground level, making it challenging for any equipment, other than a crane, to access the roof. Access around the facility was limited by barbed wire fences, lookout towers, and underground tunnels so the project had to be completed from a single setup point. Therefore, the Liebherr LTM 1300-1 was the obvious choice for this project.
With 248,000lbs of Counterweights, 83’ of Main Boom and 230’ of Luffing Jib, our crew was able to achieve the 262’ lifting radius required to set the furthest piece of equipment. The lifts were the easy component of this project. The biggest challenges involved building the Luffing Jib and maneuvering the crane and twelve loads of equipment through three security checkpoints, all of which had to be completed in one day as the lift had to be performed between executions. Efficiency and timeliness were key. The more items brought through the checkpoints, the longer the project was held up for inspections. 3D Lift Plan was utilized to properly determine the exact rigging required, allowing our team to remove unnecessary items from vehicles, and what crane matting would be required to achieve the end customer’s ground bearing pressure requirements in the determined setup location.
Building the Luffing Jib involved the use of our Tadano GT-900XL. The 230’ of jib had to be fed through a 20’ wide gate on the southeast corner of the job space. Due to limitations, the GT-900XL was required to hoist over fence obstructions in order to assemble the final end pieces. 3D Lift Plan was utilized to layout the critical obstructions, giving our crew the ability to visualize how setup would be completed.
The use of 3D Lift Plan on this project was crucial to its success. The ability to visualize crane configurations, both fully erected and in the setup position, in relation to jobsite obstructions proved to be an invaluable resource to both our crew and to our customer. Without it, our vision would not have been easily presented to the Penitentiary for space allocation and would have resulted in delays caused by the movements and organization of multiple resources the day of the job. As an engineer, I know how powerful of a tool a simulation software can be. Pictures speak a thousand words and 3D Lift Plan is no exception to this saying. Being able to provide our customer with a depiction of his project was more valuable than any phone call or email that could have been provided explaining the plan.