Three UNIC Spider Cranes Beat Access Limits on Riyadh Site

Site dictates the machine

The project called for steel elements and glass-reinforced concrete panels to be installed within a restricted site footprint in a dense part of the Saudi capital. Steel loads ran to 1,400kg and the GRC panels weighed between 500kg and 800kg, all of which had to be positioned accurately while the lifting team worked around tight access points and limited room to set up.

With larger cranes unable to reach the working area, Spider Plus built the lift plan around compact crawler cranes instead.

Splitting the work across three cranes

A UNIC URW-1006 took the heaviest of the steelwork, handling loads of up to 1,400kg. It is the largest machine in the UNIC range and pairs a substantial capacity with a footprint small enough for confined sites, which is what put it on this job.

Two UNIC URW-706 spider cranes covered the GRC panel installation, working with unit weights between 500kg and 800kg. The smaller machines gave the crews the flexibility to place panels precisely in tight positions, and their pick-and-carry capability meant loads could be moved as well as lifted without additional handling equipment.

Running three machines rather than one larger crane allowed steel erection and panel installation to proceed in parallel across different parts of the footprint, which is often the real time saving on a congested site.

Dealer input on crane selection

Spider Plus is a long-standing UNIC dealer covering the Middle East, and matched the crane configuration to the access constraints before mobilisation. UNIC Cranes Europe said the project demonstrated the practical value of spider crane solutions on sites where the conventional answer simply does not fit.

Spider Plus said that selecting equipment matched to the environment allowed the project to be delivered without compromising on either safety or performance — the usual trade-off when a site refuses to accommodate the crane the scope would otherwise call for. The URW-706’s stability on outriggers was cited alongside its footprint as a reason it suited the panel work.

Restricted-access work of this kind — urban infill sites hemmed in by existing buildings, with heavy façade elements to place at height — has become one of the main markets for the mini crawler crane sector, and the mix of one large and two smaller machines is an increasingly common way of covering a full scope without bringing in a mobile crane.