A 918 CompactWheeled excavator
Job Report
The Liebherr A 918 Compact Litronic wheeled
excavator with LIKUFIX and TR 25 tiltrotator in
service with Grüner and Mühlschlegel
Situation Task
In 1924, Fritz Grüner founded the construction company, Grüner
und Mühlschlegel, in the southern German town of Biberach an
der Riß. The company is still based there today. The areas of
activity of this traditional family firm from Upper Swabia include
civil engineering, road and bridge building as well as garden and
landscape design. Health and safety, focussing on employees
and long-term company development are the key tenets of the
company’s philosophy. These make the medium-sized company
a reliable and firm partner for employees and customers alike.
Grüner und Mühlschlegel exclusively uses Liebherr machines
for earth moving. Amongst other machines, the fleet includes
three A 900 C Litronic wheeled excavators, an A 316 Litronic, an
R 934 C Litronic crawler excavator and five 506 stereo loaders.
The firm’s construction orders are divided half-and-half between
private companies and public clients within a radius of 100 km
of the company’s headquarters. Recently, the 90 employees of
Grüner und Mühlschlegel have worked on tasks such as new
office and administration buildings, industrial structures and
various road building projects. Under its managing director,
Andreas Braun, the company has made a name for itself in the
region through reliability, quality and technical expertise. Despite
problems in the general economic situation, the construction
company is pleased to report a good level of incoming orders
with full order books.
There is an extreme variety of earth moving tasks to be tackled, reflecting the construction company’s wide range of
activities. These include classic excavation, exposing existing
construction segments, shaping earth mounds, and compacting
incorporated material. A wheeled excavator was to be used
as before for accomplishing these tasks. When it came to
purchasing the machine, the wish list included a high lifting
capacity because of the need to unload and shift prefabricated
concrete components in addition to carrying out the groundworks. It is also highly important for the wheeled excavator to
have a short tail swing radius, because the working environment
in road building and city centre applications is often restricted.
It is necessary to use different working tools in order to accomplish the various tasks. There must be provision for exchanging
these from the operator’s cab within the shortest possible time.
The company places particular emphasis on the operating and
maintenance costs of a machine, as well as its environmental
friendliness. Therefore, the final choice came down exclusively
to wheeled excavators that meet the requirements of the current
exhaust emissions stage IIIB.
Solution
Grüner und Mühlschlegel chose to tackle these applications with
an A 918 Compact Litronic wheeled excavator weighing about
18 tonnes, and equipped with the LIKUFIX fully hydraulic quick
coupling system. Its tail swing radius of only 1.85 m means the
excavator has a short rear end and is ideal for use in road building and city centre tasks. The machine is powered by a 110 kW /
150 PS Liebherr diesel engine developed in conjunction with
MAN. This engine meets the requirements of exhaust emissions
stage IIIB without needing to use a particle filter. All that is required for exhaust purification is an oxidation catalytic converter
which is maintenance-free when used with low-sulphur engine
oil as standard. As a result, maintenance costs are reduced. The
drive unit sets new standards in terms of fuel consumption for
this machine class. In some cases, the company’s machine operator can achieve less than 7 litres/hour, with the average figure
between 7 and 9 litres/hour. The A 918 Compact Litronic offers
a high lifting capacity, powerful excavating forces and very good
performance combined with low fuel consumption. This means
it meets the requirements of the construction company in terms
of productivity and efficiency.
Using Liebherr’s own LIKUFIX quick coupling system, the machine operator can change over from one tool to another within
15 seconds, without leaving the cab. It can use backhoe buckets, tilting buckets, a n add-on compactor and a Liebherr TR 25
tiltrotator with backhoe bucket. The Liebherr tiltrotator is being
used first for the extension to Hans-Liebherr-Strasse in Biberach, a project which also includes building a roundabout. It has
already become the most used working tool on this construction
site. Flexible use of the attached backhoe bucket significantly
reduces unproductive repositioning of the hydraulic excavator
during working; this increases the machine’s productivity.
The road extension became necessary due to building of a new
school in Biberach, which will become one of the largest educational facilities in Baden-Württemberg. Grüner und Mühlschlegel
has been given the order of completing the construction work
in this building project, and the company is doing this as part of
a consortium of contractors in which it is playing the managerial role. Liebherr tiltrotators have a tilting angle of 2 x 50° and
can rotate endlessly through 360°. The tilting cylinder is located
horizontally and is installed in a protected position. Even at the
maximum tilting angle, it does not have any protruding parts
which might be damaged when working in cramped conditions.
This ensures low service costs and makes Liebherr tiltrotators
the ideal tool for working with retaining walls or in the immediate
vicinity of structures. These jobs arise particularly frequently at
Grüner und Mühlschlegel. In this regard, the laborious job of digging by hand can be reduced to a minimum. The A 918 Compact
Litronic is equipped with the ergonomic Liebherr proportional
control, meaning that the tiltrotator can be operated quickly,
sensitively and precisely. Grüner und Mühlschlegel selected the
tiltrotator configuration recommended by Liebherr. The Liebherr
tiltrotator is equipped with the Liebherr LIKUFIX quick coupling
system on the top. This means the tiltrotator is only mounted
when it is actually needed. This reduces fuel consumption, increases the service life of the tiltrotator and makes it possible
to exploit the maximum lifting capacity of the hydraulic excavator during load lifting work. And when the job involves loading
trucks, the tiltrotator can be dropped off to allow the largest possible backhoe bucket to be mounted. As a result, a high material
loading rate is achieved with low fuel consumption. The fully automatic central lubrication system fitted as standard offers additional convenience for the operator and increased productivity
for the machine owner. Work can continue during the lubricating
process (attachment and swing ring). To protect the lubricant
tank of the central lubrication system against vandalism, it is
installed behind the left service door as standard. The machine
operator positively rates this equipment and the fact that daily
maintenance work can be performed from the ground. The efficiency of the new machine is so great compared to the old ones
that the company is now considering whether to bring forward
the originally planned renovation of the machine fleet.
Technical Data Configuration
A 918 Compact Litronic
Operating weight
Engine output
Emission stage
Emission control system
Fuel consumption
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17, 800 kg / 39,240 lbs
110 kW / 150 HP
IIIB
Oxydation catalytic converter
7-9 liters / hour
Prop-up blade
Two-piece boom
2.45 m / 8.0 ft stick
Quick coupler SW / QC 48 with LIKUFIX
Liebherr proportional control
Piston rod protection for stabilizer cylinders
Manual central lubrication for undercarriage
Electronic immobilizer
Printed in Germany by Schirmer BK LHB 11481197-1.5-06.12_enGB
Liebherr-Hydraulikbagger GmbH
Liebherrstraße 12, D-88457 Kirchdorf / Iller
+49 7354 80-0, Fax +49 7354 80-72 94
www.liebherr.com, E-Mail: info.lhb@liebherr.com
Subject to technical modifications.
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