348 Series 2 assists N.C. garage project

In June 2018, North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper signed a bill designating $20,420,000 for a new parking garage at UNC-Wilmington in Wilmington, N.C. The contract was awarded to Davis Erecting of Greenville, S.C. for the four-story, 250,000 square-foot parking garage. Davis used its Link-Belt 300-ton 348 Series 2 lattice crawler crane to lift 850 pieces of concrete.

The 348 Series 2 lifts 60-foot long, pre-stressed concrete double-tee beams weighing up to 60,000 pounds from four pick points with two 20-foot long cables attached to the main block, connected with ten-ton capacity ring clutches.

“I use the fine metering knob pretty much all the time,” said Scotty Adams, operator. “When I’m bringing the double-tees off the trailer, I’m booming up while I’m cabling up. I’ll have the knob tuned down to a slow motion as it’s centered. When I’m over the center of the load, I know I can start hoisting it up. By centering I mean, as I’m hoisting up, the boom deflection is going to come down, so I’m watching that second block up there and when I get it back up with the number one block. I’m still in the slow metering mode and the double-tee lifts straight up.”

The heaviest lifts for the job are concrete coping “eyebrow” sections that weigh 64,200 pounds rigged. Those sections are hoisted at a 68-foot radius at a 72-degree boom angle.