How do you mount a 90-ton turbine housing or a rotor blade with a diameter of 50m to a wind turbine tower at a height of over 100m? With the world’s tallest and strongest mobile crane – the Liebherr LTM 11200-9.1.
This record breaking crane is designed and manufactured by Liebherr, Germany. And being part of the design team also requires you to be tall and strong.
I talked to Werner Knehr at Liebherr, who’s been intimately involved in this project, to find out more about the challenges. He explained that while many aspects of mobile crane design are expertly understood by the team at Liebherr, the LTM 11200-9.1 project pushed everything to the limits. From balancing the forward and rearward moments, requirements for forward and rear-axle steering, and multiple axle chassis, to ensuring the total weight of the crane remained under the maximum allowed weight limit for roads in countries across the world.
To address all those challenges, different design alternatives were explored and frequent and unplanned design changes were needed to reach the optimal solution. And that’s where PTC’s Creo design solutions came in. Using Creo’s direct modeling tools, the team was able to re-use and re-design existing parts from previous design projects, address unforeseeable design changes to help reduce weight, optimize the torsion of the telescopic cranes, and even respond to new requirements resulting from new markets and applications. Mr. Knehr summarizes “the Creo software speeds up our design process and makes it much more effective.”
Image courtesy of Liebherr Group
And one final point worth mentioning, Liebherr uses both PTC’s Creo direct and parametric tools across the company, best matching the modeling approach with the product design strategy of each of its business groups. In a future blog, We will be looking at how Liebherr design cranes for offshore use, for example, on oil rigs, using Creo’s parametric approach. And if like me, looking at this crane brings out the child in you, you too can own your own Liebherr LTM 11200-9.1, as a 1:50 scale model!
Do you have to drive the cranes by yourself, or do they have a professional do it for you? I wouldn't mind learning how to drive one, but it might take me a lot more time. Regards, industrial lifting solutions
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