In 2014, Terex Cranes launched its new Terex® Boom Booster kit. It’s a godsend for customers who need to lift heavy items with long-boom configurations in the petrochemical, wind turbine and power plant industries. The benefit of the Boom Booster is that when it is fitted to the Terex CC 8800-1 crawler crane, it increases the crane’s lifting capacity by up to 90 percent, meaning it can “out-lift” any other crane in the 1,000 to 2,000 tonne capacity range currently on the market.

“The Boom Booster kit is simply added to the main boom of the crane,” explains Rüdiger Zollondz, Director of Product Marketing at Terex Cranes. “The wedge-shaped, 11-meter-long lower and upper adapters flare out to a width of ten meters, nearly three times the standard 3.5-meter boom width.”

“The Boom Booster kit enables customers to complete jobs they could not have done before,” Zollondz says.

The challenge

Ensuring that the kit could lift heavier loads was just one part of the job. Terex Cranes also wanted to make sure that the Boom Booster was lightweight without compromising on safety. “Safety is top priority for us. So when developing a new product, we always take safety into consideration from day one,” adds Zollondz. “For example, the Boom Booster kit comes with the ESTA Award-winning fall protection system, which helps to prevent injuries and accidents when using the equipment.”

The solution

Strenx 700 high-strength steel from SSAB was used in the Terex Boom Booster. SSAB is no stranger to the crane industry’s needs and has been supplying Terex for almost 30 years with Strenx** high-strength steel plates with mechanical properties up to 1100 MPa used for the chassis of the crane and crane booms. Today, the plates used in crane production are far lighter and thinner than 30 years ago but offer the same performance and strength.

“This is a huge advantage in the crane industry as lighter cranes mean more load,” says Christoph Bednarz, SSAB’s Regional Sales Manager in southwest Germany.

“In mid-2013, Terex told us they wanted hollow steel tubes with a clean surface. They were looking for a good quality material. It was also very important for them that we could offer them a finished material so they didn’t have to do any cutting themselves in-house and could save on the costs with this additional work,” elaborates Bednarz, who manages the Terex Cranes account.

The steel used in the Boom Booster is supplied from SSAB’s facilities in Finland. The hollow steel tube is made in the mill in Pulkkila in northern Finland and is then sent to Hyvinkää in southern Finland for cutting and drilling. From there the finished steel product is sent to Terex Cranes in Germany, ready to be used in the production of the Boom Booster, according to Marika Koski, Sales Manager for SSAB Tube Products in Germany.

“It was a big challenge for us as we had never done this kind of order before on this scale. Everyone in our mills was very happy to get this business,” she adds.

In September 2013, the first SSAB steel products for the Boom Booster were delivered to Terex Cranes.

“We also see some potential in using Strenx 1300 for boom application and Strenx 1100 for tension straps,” says Bednarz. “We currently use Strenx 960 but Strenx 1100 would be a cost saving for the customer as the tension straps would be thinner and lighter.”

* Formerly named Optim.

** All references to Strenx, Strenx 1300, Strenx 1100 and Strenx 960 refer to formerly named product Weldox.