You know you are operating a large construction crane when it requires a permit from the Federal Aviation Administration to rise to its full height.
Construction crews call it “Great Red”: a fire-engine red behemoth weighing 760,000 pounds and stretching 290 feet above the site where the Pittsburgh International Airport terminal upgrade project is located.
Just as planes need air traffic controllers clearance to take off and landing, cranes need FAA clearance and constant coordination with the tower in order to operate at airports. The overview covers, among other things, the rate of climb of the aircraft (with one engine off), the height and radius of rotation of the crane boom, and the direction of the wind.
Agency pre-approved cranes operating on site up to 250 feet, said Rob Bramblett, project manager at the PJ Dick joint venture | Hunting.
“When we climb above 250 feet, we need to change some airport procedures so that the crane can operate fully extended and straight in the air,” said Bramblett.
Each morning, construction crews outline their plans for the day with the Air Traffic Control (ATC) tower. Then officials notify the team of potential weather problems that could impact airport operations, which always take priority over construction operations.
“We describe who goes up, who goes down, and the tower will tell us in some cases, depending on the weather, that we may not be able to launch that day because the planes can travel on the lower levels,” said Bramblett.
“But it just fits in with the nature of the airport construction. We know that we will lose a few days during the program. ”
High-tech machines
Big Red – officially known as the Manitowoc MLC300 VPC Max – arrived in Pittsburgh in May, imported from Texas in a few pieces. See the article : No return: Return to office ‘expected to fail’ in Seattle, report says. Once there, it took a team of eight two days to assemble it.
Currently, Big Red is one of 12 cranes and operators helping to construct the new PIT terminal, including the 80-foot crane and over 200-foot cranes. Although cranes do most of the heavy duty, they are some of the most sophisticated machines used in the construction industry. Each crane is equipped with sensors to help calculate how much it can lift under different conditions.
“There is an on-board computer that performs calculations and measures real-time things like wind and cargo weight to make sure nothing weird is happening,” said Bramblett. “If you step into that taxi, it looks more like a space shuttle than a backhoe.”
Safety First
A dedicated communication channel allows crane operators to communicate directly with each other. To see also : Atlanta has the 7th largest home in the United States.
“A lot of times you pick something called” blind “where crane operators can pick beam after something so they don’t see it … It’s not like you drive up one day, the truck reverses and it just starts throwing steel, said Bramblett . “It requires a lot of advanced planning and detail communication between us and the tower.”
Safety is the highest priority of the Terminal Modernization Program, and one of the safety maximums in construction is never to be under load. Twice this year, PIT had to turn off the automated handling of people linking the Airside and Landside terminals, while the cranes lifted massive steel components above the tunnel as part of the foundations of the new terminal.
The high-tech tunnel monitoring system uses lasers to continuously detect if there are any areas in the tunnel, even if slightly uneven.
Big Red is located relatively far from the building under construction to avoid the collapse of existing airport rail and utility tunnels due to the combined weight of the crane and the steel it lifts.
High-tech cranes are typically used for large-scale tasks such as the construction of stadiums and large, sprawling buildings. For PIT, the project requires open spaces inspired by the rolling hills, rivers and parks of western Pennsylvania.
“Although the building is only about 100 feet tall, we need to be over 290 feet tall by crane due to how the geometry of the structure works. Some of the beams we will be installing have a span of 120 feet due to the large, bright spans inside the building, ”said Bramblett. “Larger beams mean they weigh more, which means you need a bigger crane to lift them.”
