The ingenuity and technical excellence of the UK’s market leading national lifting solutions company, Ainscough Crane Hire, has come to the fore at the development of the new 320,000tpa EfW (Energy from Waste) plant at Allerton Waste Recovery Park in North Yorkshire.

Ainscough have a 37-month contract with Vinci, the main construction partner of Amey, the company which will operate the facility for 25 years on behalf of North Yorkshire County Council and the City of York Council.

Their solution, to use a mobile tower crane from the Ainscough fleet, was a simple decision – but made all the more challenging by the fact that the crane’s base needed to be positioned at the bottom of a 28.5 metre deep concrete waste bunker.

On-site logistics meant that there wasn’t any other suitable lifting pad available.

With a Terex CC 2800-1, 600t crawler crane already in use on-site lifting items such as the plant’s 160 tonne boiler, it was decided to use this crawler crane to lift and lower the mobile tower crane into the base of the bunker. Once inside it would unfold into its operating position and carry out the necessary lifts to complete the construction before being lifted out again.

After numerous CAD drawings, method statements and the centre of gravity calculations had all been completed, the Heavy Crane Division’s crawler crane undertook the painstaking task of lowering of the Liebherr MK110 mobile tower crane down into the bunker. .

With limited rigging space and just 1.5 metres of clearance at either side, the planning paid off and the crane spent around ten weeks in the bunker before being removed.

Igor Scalas, Project Engineer for Heavy Cranes who planned the lifts said: “The task of lowering a self-erecting mobile tower crane into the bunker was very challenging. The parameters of the lift were extremely restricted meaning the planning required had to be both detailed and comprehensive.

“Watching the tower crane first rise and then disappear over the edge of the bunker was quite a sight. From start to finish the lift took around five hours and passed off exactly as we had planned.

“The skill of the operators was exceptional but it was very much a team effort with input from a range of people in the business. The client was very pleased with the solution we provided and has given us very good feedback on our work to date.”

Construction is expected to be completed in 2017 with the new facility becoming fully operational in early 2018. As well as reducing the amount of waste going to landfill by 90%, it will also generate enough energy to power the equivalent of 40,000 homes.

The project began at the end of October 2014 and is scheduled to finish at the end of November 2017. Ainscough Crane Hire was contracted for the entire 37 month period.


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