TWO LIEBHERR 1000 EC-H 40 LITRONIC TOWER CRANES HAVE PLAYED A SIGNIFICANT PART IN CONSTRUCTING BOTH THE DOME AND THE BUILDING OF THE NOISY-CHAMPS TRAIN STATION.
The new station, part of the major French Grand Paris Express project, will form a hub for metro lines in south-eastern Paris. Liebherr machines are at work on 13 sites belonging to the infrastructure project, which aims to improve connections between the centre of Paris and surrounding areas.
The construction site for Noisy-Champs station encompasses a forecourt, the station building itself and an underground section stretching 250 metres with tracks for parking and turning trains.
The 150-metre-long station building will feature three storeys when the shell is completed later in 2023. A 25-metre-high dome made from wood, steel and glass, supported by twelve steel columns, will form the focal point of the building. The dome’s supporting structure will weigh 450 tonnes in total, while the metal frame of the dome itself will weigh in at 1.5 tonnes. Accordingly, the parts the cranes had to move were both massive and heavy. The prefabricated supports and masts weighed up to 20 tonnes each, the formwork around 30 tonnes. 35-tonne elements were involved during the lifting and placing of metal roof struts, and the metal and wood dome frame sections weighed up to 25 tonnes. The walkway system consists of 24 metal modules that were pre-assembled on the ground and then lifted into position by crane.
The 1000 EC-H 40 is capable of lifting up to 40 tonnes; lifts of up to 11.5 tonnes are still possible at maximum radius. The two 1000 EC-H 40 Litronic high-top cranes reached a hook height of 49.43 metres and 35.19 metres respectively. Both machines used the same jib length of 65 metres. The maximum possible hook height for this type of crane stands at 88.4 metres, the maximum radius at 80 metres.
The name Noisy-Champs stems from the location of the station. It’s named after the two towns of Noisy-le-Grand and Champs-sur-Marne, the first to the east and the second to the south-east of Paris. This coming together of the two towns is also reflected in the station’s architecture by way of the dome’s two intertwined spirals. The spirals meet above their geographical border.
Noisy-Champs is one of the 68 new stations included in the Grand Paris Express project. A total of six new metro lines are being built across 200 kilometres. It is scheduled to open at the end of 2025. The two cranes started work on the site in 2019 and were successfully dismantled in spring 2023.
