Zoomlion & Cifa break 100 m mark

Zoomlion and its Italian subsidiary Cifa have broken the record for the world’s largest concrete placing boom, with a 101 m model – the first time the 100 m mark has been broken. The seven-piece boom includes four carbon fibre sections at the end to reduce weight and increase reach.

The boom was unveiled at Zoomlion’s headquarters in Changsha in a ceremony that included 60 employees who had worked on the project. Engineers were drawn from both the company’s China and Italy-based workforces.

Research & development director Nicola Pirri said, “Cifa, together with Zoomlion, is back in the Guinness Book of Records a year after the presentation of the 80 m pump. Our group’s innovations, involving new materials and electronic systems, tell the world that we are always forward-looking.”

Cifa has used carbon fibre before in its products, namely in the Carbotech range of placing booms, which also use the material to replace steel in the end sections. . However, according to technical area manager, Mauro Cortellini, the company had to research a new material for this project. “The carbon used in the Zoomlion-Cifa 101 pump has a high modulus of elasticity and is a very different material from the one used in the Carbotech range to date. There are obviously many other innovative solutions, which we will evaluate at the internal testing stage,” he said.