Sinotrans breaks world’s heaviest building transport record in China
Sinotrans Heavy-Lift, a subsidiary of China’s largest logistics company Sinotrans, handled the move of a 750-tonne hotel over a distance of 500 metres, using Transporter Industry International Scheuerle’s SPMTs. The process took approximately eight hours to complete.
The project took place in Hong Tang Bay, in the city of Sanya, on Hainan Island. This area has become a popular tourism destination in recent years due to its beaches and is now home to over a hundred hotels. The Hainan Hongtang Bay Hotel, is a 1-story underground and 2-story above ground reinforced concrete frame structure. It was designed and constructed by Shandong Construction University Engineering Identification and Reinforcement Research Institute and Shandong Jiangu Specialized Engineering Company.
This hotel building had to be moved to comply with Chinese environmental regulations. Other companies involved in the project include the Hainan Chenghuang Construction Engineering Company, Hainan Urban Construction & Engineering, Hongye Engineering Project Management, and a Shanghai-based investment company.
The two main challenges in the gargantuan move, were on one hand, the exceptionally high weight of the building, and on the other the asymmetrical architecture of the 90 metres long, 35 metres wide and 20-metre high, 4,658 square meter building. Due to the high weight, the assignment not only required a large number of axle lines but also electronically coupled and controlled modules due to the unequal load distribution. The heavy goods logistics company has been relying on Scheuerle SPMTs because of the synchronisation procedure.
The specialist transport company distributed the load of the hotel on 254 axle lines. Sinotrans coupled the self-propelled SPMT at different angles to each other to form a fan-shaped combination. A total of 15 Power Pack Units (PPU) drove the vehicle combination. The company was therefore able to turn the building clockwise by 63 degrees, then counterclockwise by 63 degrees during transportation, which was needed to reach the new location.
