Liebherr 85 EC-B tower cranes lift climate science over the Amazon

A crane job with no building in sight

The AmazonFACE (Free-Air Carbon Dioxide Enrichment) programme, led by Brazil’s National Institute for Amazonian Research (INPA) with the University of Campinas and the UK Met Office, exposes an intact section of old-growth Amazon rainforest to the CO2 concentrations expected in the coming decades. To find out how the canopy, soil and carbon uptake respond, researchers need regular, safe access to the treetops — and that is where the four flat-top cranes come in. Rather than erecting anything, the 85 EC-B units serve as the site’s primary access platform, lifting personnel and sensitive instruments such as gas analysers and sampling equipment to measurement height.

The stakes are considerable: the Amazon basin holds an estimated 150 to 200 billion tonnes of carbon in its vegetation and soil, and whether that store grows or shrinks under rising CO2 levels is one of the big open questions in climate science.

“Some phenomena that occurred very rarely began to be very frequent. The entire climate of the region started to become very abnormal.”

— Bruno Takeshi, operations lead, AmazonFACE programme

Why tower cranes beat walkways

The choice of tower cranes over scaffolding or elevated walkways was made on environmental grounds. A crane mast takes up very little ground area — critical in an old-growth forest where soil compaction, root damage and canopy openings must be kept to a minimum — while the horizontal jib covers a wide slice of the experimental plot without repeated repositioning. The flat-top design of the EC-B series, with no A-frame above the jib, also lets the four machines slew in overlapping radius zones without passing loads over each other’s masts. The programme has secured the national authorisations and safety certifications required for lifting personnel by tower crane.

“The four Liebherr 85 EC-B 5 tower cranes were chosen precisely because they can withstand the extremes of heat and humidity and not disturb the habitat.”

— Bruna Prisco, application engineer, Liebherr-Brasil

Smooth drives for delicate loads

With a maximum jib of 50 metres and a top capacity of 5,000 kg, the 85 EC-B is a compact machine by tower crane standards, but its frequency-controlled hoist and slewing drives are what matter here: smooth acceleration protects fragile instruments on the way up through the canopy layers. Two of the four cranes were built at Liebherr’s factory in Brazil, the other pair in Spain. Liebherr-Brasil backs the remote site with operator training, maintenance instruction, spare parts and on-call technical support.

Site engineer Maria Juliana Monte says working from the cranes changes one’s view of the forest: “You don’t expect to be so close to the forest. And then I’m working within it — you can understand its real importance very well.”

Source: Liebherr — Photos: Liebherr