Dutch heavy lift specialist Mammoet has unveiled a crane with a capacity of 6,000 tonnes, which it describes as the world’s strongest land-based lifter.
The SK6000 is electrically operated and is intended to make large infrastructure projects faster and easier to execute.
It uses up to 4,200 tonnes of ballast and has a maximum ground pressure of 30 tonnes per sq m. Despite its size, it is designed to be transported using shipping containers to any location worldwide.
One use case is nuclear power plants; another is wind farms, where the fashion is to install ever larger turbines. The SK6000 can lift machines with a weight of up to 3,000 tonnes to a height of 220m.
Another trend is towards designing projects in modular form for on-site assembly. A crane like the SK6000 increases the weight of the modules that can be developed.
Gavin Kerr, director of global services at Mammoet, commented: “This crane is truly a world record feat of engineering, with a production schedule to match. Hundreds of colleagues have been directly involved with its development across the business.
“There are very few companies on Earth – if any – that could have brought this crane into reality, and we are immensely proud to be able to do so”.
The SK6000 is currently undergoing testing at Mammoet’s Westdorpe facility in the Netherlands, ready for deployment to its first project later in the year.
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