Beam work makes the BORR dream work!
The high-capacity crawler crane was recently used to lift the bridge beams into place at South Western Railway Line and Railway Road on the Bunbury Outer Ring Road.
Published: 20 October 2023, Updated: 20 October 2023
Over the past few weeks, the Bunbury Outer Ring Road (BORR) construction team have been hard at work lifting the 14 tee-roff beams and installing them on the bridge spanning over the South Western Railway Line and Railway Road.
Due to the nature of the terrain and design of the alignment, the crane used to lift these beams needed to be able to perform the installations from the one position: On top of the northern abutment of the bridge, to be exact.What’s an abutment, I hear you ask?
The abutment is the section at the end of each bridge that helps to support the weight of the bridge deck itself and the load (i.e., vehicles) it carries. It’s the critical part of the structure that helps keep everything safe and stable.
The first span of beams weighed a whopping 200 tonnes and reached 44 metres in length. The second span was equally as impressive and weighed 100 tonnes and were 21 metres in length.
The 800t super lift capacity for crawler crane.
What did that mean?
It meant the team understood that - to mis-quote Chief Brody from the movie Jaws - “We’re gonna need a bigger crane.”
And a bigger crane we got!
The length of the 2.2m deep beams in all their glory
The unique super-lift capacity 800-tonne crawler crane is one of only a select few in the whole of Australia. Between its lifting capacity and its size, it enabled the construction crew to install all of the tee-roff beams from the one spot on the abutment. The entire process took more than a week to complete over the live freight railway.
Move over Dream Team from the 1992 Barcelona Olympics, because the Beam Team are here to stay!
A tee-roff beam 'mid lift'
