Pic: courtesy of Dragados.
Spanish soccer team Real Betis is completing the expansion of the Benito Villamarin stadium with the support of three Linden Comansa cranes model 21LC290 from rental company Eleva Grúas Torre.
The La Liga club is close to finishing the reconstruction works of its home ground in the city of Seville. It is expected that the construction of the Gol Sur (South goal or South end), the last stands of the Benito Villamarín stadium, will end in June, right before the start of the 2017/2018 season.
The works, which started during the summer of 2016 with the demolition of the old stands, are being carried out through the season without affecting the competitive calendar of Real Betis, which has played all home games at the stadium. For the construction of the new structure, which will increase the stadium’s capacity by 8,000 seats, three 18 ton Linden Comansa 21LC290 tower cranes were erected in October 2016, hired by general contractor Heliopol from rental company Eleva Grúas Torre.
The stands under construction have a street right behind them, which made it necessary to close the road to traffic for two days and to speed up the assembly times. Furthermore, due to the reduced space between the new stands and the street, one of the cranes was erected on a 14.8ft cross base instead of the 19.7ft base that is more common for this model.
Since then, the three 21LC290 cranes work with a 177ft-long radius, mainly lifting special formwork and precast concrete pieces of up to 7,000kg in weight. To avoid interferences between the cranes, the one located in between has a height under hook of 184.7ft while the ones in the sides are working at a height of 139.8ft.
When the project ends, the new stands will increase stadium capacity to 58,000.
This is not the first time that Linden Comansa cranes have worked at the stadium, which opened in 1929. In the previous expansion of the stadium, carried out between 1998 and 2000, contractor Dragados installed three Linden Comansa tower cranes that helped to complete the Fondo stands, right in front of the main stands, and the Gol Norte (North end), opposite to the ones that are about to be finished.
Rental company Eleva Grúas Torre owns a fleet of more than 70 Linden Comansa tower cranes.
May 31, 2017
