Site report: Sarens scores in Lyon

An ambitious €250 million football stadium that will play host to major national and international events has been constructed in a suburb of Lyon, France, with the help of heavy lift and transport specialist the Sarens Group and crane manufacturer Terex. IC reports

The impressive 59,500-seat Parc Olympique Lyonnais replaces the former football stadium, Stade de Gerland, used by French football club Olympique Lyonnais. The area surrounding the stadium serves as a leisure centre and public space, bringing together shops, restaurants, hotels and a football museum.

The first major national event hosted at the new stadium – a series of matches for major European soccer championship Euro 2016 – is scheduled for June 2016, so construction activities were at a fever pitch to complete the stadium by the January 2016 deadline. With the major structural work and seating areas complete, work turned to installation of the steel structure that supports the enclosure roof.

The Sarens Group was brought in, quite literally, to carry the load. The Belgian company supplied a 650 tonne capacity Terex Superlift 3800 lattice boom crawler crane. Sam Voeten, Sarens project manager, explains, “We chose the crane for its versatility. For this project, we needed high capacity at a short radius as well as high lifting capabilities when working at an extended radius without reconfiguring the boom.”

Crews prepared the crane for the more than 800-kilometre trip from Cherbourg, northern France, to the stadium. Within a week 46 trucks had transported the crane. “We needed a total of 540 tonnes (595 tons) of counterweight for the structure, central ballast and superlift tray to perform all lifts,” explains Voeten.

Guntram Jakobs, Terex Cranes product marketing manager, says, “No component is over 3 metres wide, so the Superlift 3800 is built with transport in mind. It can be easily transported to any market around the world, and features like nesting boom segments and interchangeable counterweight slabs reduce the number of truckloads and lower transportation costs.”

A compact design also helped out at the stadium, says Voeten, “The access tunnels for truck deliveries were only 5 m high by 4 m wide, so the narrow transport dimensions of the Superlift 3800 helped us to get components inside the stadium for rigging.”

On site a crew of five assembled the crane and superlift structure within four days. Configuration for the project required 60 m of main boom with a 42 m fly jib and 36 m of superlift mast.

The Terex fall protection system contributes to safety when rigging the boom sections. It includes a vest harness with a shock absorber and is designed to allow secure, tethered walking and working on the main boom.

On the roof

The Parc Olympique Lyonnais design boasts an enclosed roof so games can be played in any weather. Sarens’ crews were charged with placing preassembled segments of the steel structure supporting the roof. The smaller exterior flanges were about one third of this size, weighing 50 tonnes each.

The roof supports were placed around the entire circumference of the stadium and there was limited room for the crane to do its work. “Management of the free space inside the stadium was a challenge," says Voeten. “Terex helped us by studying the specific parking conditions for this project and corresponding maximum permissible wind speeds at the various working radii.”

The 3800’s structure carried 165 tonnes of counterweight, 50 tonnes of central ballast and 325 tonnes on the variable position superlift tray, which offered working ranges from 11 to 19 m.

The crane hoisted and placed the 150 tonne inner structure segments. Working at a radius of 43 m, the structure was hoisted to its drop-off height of 45 m.

With limited space for positioning the crane, crews worked up to a radius of 81 m – nearly the entire length of the football field – to position the smaller 50 tonne assemblies. These exterior sections were also positioned at 45 m height for final assembly. The stadium was completed in time to be inaugurated in early January 2016.

This site report was taken from the March 2016 issue of International Cranes and Specialized Transport magazine.