HS2 London Tunnels: Crane Monitoring for the Skanska Costain STRABAG JV

Windcrane helped us with wind monitoring for our Liebherr LTR 1220 and LR 1250 cranes this met our needs for making safety and maintenance decisions for the Copthall North project. We use daily and weekly reports to help us with weather claims and can access the data remotely at any time we need. The platform is very intuitive to use with a good interface and the data is displayed in a clear manner. Also, really good customer service support.

George Tayler, Section Engineer for SCS Railways | HS2 Lot S2

The HS2 project scope includes 37 miles of viaducts and 45 miles of tunnels, and Skanska-Costain-STRABAG Joint Venture (SCS JV) was contracted for the London area tunnels. SCS JV are building 13 miles of twin-bore tunnels, and they require weather monitoring for their crawler cranes. The WINDCRANE Mini Jib End Kit in currently being used in each of their cranes, and it accomplishes three main functions:

• Live weather monitoring

• Historical reports

• Crane-specific weather forecasts

Providing Weather Monitoring for the SCS JV Crawler Cranes at the Copthall Tunnel

SCS JV required live weather monitoring for their crane operations, and also a system capable of delivering historical reports and weather forecasts. The WINDCRANE Mini Jib End Kit offered the ideal solution for this project, and it was installed on all their cranes.

Located in the Hillingdon Borough, the Copthall Tunnel is within the SCS JV contract scope. This is part of a 13-mile twin tunnel system that involves seven tunnel boring machines, with five operating simultaneously. The SCS JV partners have ample global experience with infrastructure projects, including high-speed railways. They will be working along the last 26.4 km of the HS2, leading up the southern WCML terminus at the Euston railway station. SCS JV is using several crane models at the Copthall Tunnel construction, including:

• Liebherr LTR 1220 telescopic crawler crane

• Liebherr LTR 1060 telescopic crawler crane

• Liebherr LR 1250 lattice boom crawler crane

SCS JV required live weather monitoring for their crane operations, and also a system capable of delivering historical reports and weather forecasts. The WINDCRANE Mini Jib End Kit offered the ideal solution for this project, and it was installed on all their cranes.

The WINDCRANE jib end kit is specifically designed to be used on all types of mobile and crawler cranes, offering the following features:

• Compliant with IEC61400 and BSI EN 13000

• Simple installation: Mounting clamps and straps designed specifically for crane jibs

• Compatible with the 24V crane jib power supply

• IoT wind management service

• Detailed wind data for each site: Live, historical and forecast

• Smart wind speed reports, broken down by project and by crane

• 3-year warranty

• 1-year monitoring contract, which includes access to the WINDCRANE web portal.

WINDCRANE provides hourly and daily wind speed forecasts, calculated exactly at the crane height. These forecasts are especially helpful for project managers, who can use them to plan crane operations more efficiently. Weather data is stored at 10-minute intervals in a cloud platform with bank-grade security, and historical reports can be generated automatically to provide downtime evidence. All data can be accessed 24/7 with a web dashboard or the WINDCRANE GO mobile app.

HS2 is currently the largest infrastructure project in Europe, consisting of a 343-mile high speed railway system that connects 30 million people in Northern England. The HS2 project represents £23 billion in contracts, creating more than 34,000 construction jobs. All trains using the new rail network will be powered by zero carbon energy, providing a cleaner alternative to passenger vehicles and local flights. HS2 is expected to reach net-zero operation by 2035.