Four Linden Comansa Tower Cranes at Legendary “Maracaná”

If there was a poll about the world’s most famous sport venue among football (soccer) fans, or even among general sports fans, very few would name the “Jornalista Mário Filho” stadium. But on the first place of the list would be without any doubt “Maracaná”, the name with which this stadium at Rio-de-Janeiro, Brazil, is popularly known.

“Maracaná” was built for the FIFA 1950 World Cup, where it hosted both the opening and closing games. For many years, it has been the sports venue with higher capacity, up to 200,000 people, and nowadays is under renovations to host again another FIFA World Cup in 2014, and also the opening and closing ceremonies of the 2016 Olympic Games.

The project belongs to EMOP – Empresa de Obras Públicas do Estado do Rio-de-Janeiro – and Secretary of Works, and is executed by “Consórcio Maracanã Rio 2014”. This consortium, formed by construction companies Odebrecht Infraestrutura and Andrade Gutierrez, relies on four 21 LC 400 tower cranes from Spanish manufacturer Linden Comansa. The cranes, with maximum load capacity of 18 tonnes, have been erected with jib length of 70 meters, which allows them to reach the entire jobsite. Their most important task up to now is mounting the metal structures of the tiers of seats, although soon they will be helping on the assembly of the steel cables of the ceiling, which will cover 96% of all seats.

Due to Linden Comansa’s modular system and the Flat-Top design, the cranes have been erected with a difference on height of only 5.5 meters, in other words, one mast section, which supposes an important saving in costs of erection and disassembly of the cranes. Thus, the lowest crane has been erected at a freestanding height of 36.3 meters, whereas the highest has been erected at a height of 52.8 meters.

The four tower cranes are part of the fleet of rental Roll-Lift Latin America, formed after the acquisition of Rino Movimento de Cargas by Dutch company Roll-Lift. Nowadays Roll-Lift Latin America has more than 130 employees in Brazil and Uruguay, where it provides services to projects where cargo handling and heavy transport are necessary.

The new “Maracaná” stadium, which will have capacity for almost 79,000 spectators, should be finished by February 2013, four months before hosting its first competition, the FIFA Confederations Cup.