“Using a crawler crane would have been extremely difficult for this phase due to the incline where the crane had to be positioned,” adds Spencer. Hallamore’s strategy included using two 600-U.S.-ton (500-tonne) class all terrain cranes – the Demag® AC 500-8 and AC 500-1 – one working on Commonwealth Avenue and the other from the Massachusetts Turnpike. When it came time to repeat the process in just 15 days for the westbound bridge, lessons learned from the 2017 process had the prime contractor working with Hallamore to devise a lift plan with a shorter crane set-up time. While it had the capacity, “crane assembly time hurt the contractor for such a short-duration project and resulted in extra work and expense during mobilization,” comments Gary Spencer, general manager for Hallamore Corporation of Holbrook, Mass. It was positioned and rigged below the bridge on a portion of the Massachusetts Turnpike. The prime contractor had just 20 days to complete total reconstruction of the eastbound lanes and chose a 1600-ton (1,450-tonne) class crawler crane for all the heavy lifting. The MASS DOT contract called for the eastbound bridge lanes to be demolished and replaced in 2017 and then the westbound in 2018. With so much riding on the project, the Massachusetts Department of Transportation (Mass DOT) decided on ABC to replace the 53-year-old structure.ĪBC condensed the estimated 3-year conventional bridge construction project into two intense, meticulously planned short-lived masterpieces. Roughly 200,000 people each day rely on the Turnpike and bridge to get to their destinations, which includes nearby Boston University, Boston College and Harvard. The Commonwealth Avenue Bridge is a major Boston thoroughfare.

Alternatively, accelerated bridge construction (ABC) impacts traffic more significantly but for a shorter time. Conventional bridge construction projects can take years to complete and impede the traffic patterns throughout construction, which does not appeal to the public. Heavily congested construction sites like the Commonwealth Avenue Bridge spanning the Massachusetts Turnpike in Boston pose a problem for planning agencies. Hallamore enlists two 600-U.S.-ton mobile Demag cranes for the Commonwealth Avenue

Demag 500 ton crane load chart