The World’s Tallest Concrete Pump Put Scania in the Guinness Book of Records

The world’s tallest concrete pump, mounted on a 7-axle Scania V8-truck, put Scania in the Guinness Book of Records. The pump, unveiled by Chinese concrete machinery manufacturer Zoomlion, is 101 metres long and has a 7-section boom, the last 4 sections being made of carbon fibre.

In recent years, the giants of the world concrete pump industry have outdone each other, time and time again, on the way to the magical 100-metre threshold. When Scania was commissioned to specify and build a truck chassis for the huge superstructure needed, everything had to be kept strictly secret.

“Zoomlion asked us to build a chassis for the tallest mobile pump in the world and the first one over 100 metres, but also asked us to keep it a secret, as they wanted to release the news on Zoomlion’s 20th anniversary. Therefore, we have kept a low profile even internally about this exceptional vehicle,” explains Daniel Henriksson, Sales Engineer for construction vehicles at Scania.

Scania’s longest chassis

To cope with the weight of the 7-section boom, a 7-axle chassis was required. This was built at one of Scania’s chassi lines in Sweden and complemented by Laxå Special Vehicles, with their long tradition of building custom cabs and chassis for Scania. The 15.5-metre chassis, with a 620 hp V8-engine, is probably the longest ever built by Scania.

The complicated superstructure was developed  by Zoomlion and Italian construction equipment maker Cifa, a subsidiary of the Chinese giant, and built at Zoomlion’s main facility in Changsha in central China.

Altogether this very special vehicle is 18.5 metres long. An exceptional feature is the fact that the pump structure is mounted on a “normal” truck chassis, not on a special vehicle, which means that it complies with the maximum dimensions and footprints imposed for road transport.

“Officially amazing” is the slogan of Guinness World Records, the company behind the world’s best-selling copyrighted book, that awarded the honour for this amazing Zoomlion-Cifa-Scania vehicle.

Scania has delivered trucks to Zoomlion since 2008. The truck chassis have been increasingly customised to facilitate and streamline Zoomlion’s work of fitting superstructures. In an example of close customer-supplier cooperation, Scania’s trucks have also been dimensioned to be able to carry and transport even longer concrete placing booms.

“Scania’s strong position as a supplier of trucks to the premium segment for concrete pumps also represents a success for our entire organisation’s cross-functional working method,” says Peter Sjöblom, Managing Director of Scania China.

Building China

The trucks supplied to Zoomlion are typically fitted with Scania 6-cylinder engines and the pumps are mainly used in the construction of high-rise buildings and bridges.

In order to ensure high uptime, Scania China has trained personnel at Zoomlion’s own service workshops and has also established special teams of service technicians that can assist in the event of operational disruptions.

“Pump 101” will be exhibited at the Bauma China 2012 trade fair for construction machinery, to be held in Shanghai 27-30 November 2012. It is currently at the prototype stage, and is due to undergo a detailed structural and functional analysis, involving very strict tests. The target market for this product is primarily China, but there may also be demand from Europe in the future.