World's Largest Mobile Crane at Intel's Chandler Facility

Although this is the North Phoenix Blog, I acknowledge that important things happen in other parts of Phoenix and Arizona all the time. Sometimes, very big things happen.

If you've been in the Chandler area recently, you may have seen the gigantic crane at the Intel plant. You may have even thought to yourself "Wow, that's a big crane." It is more than just big, it is one of the largest mobile cranes in the world!

The Sarens SGC-120 crane has been called in to do some heavy lifting at Intel, where workers are busy constructing a new manufacturing facility called Fab42. When finished in 2013, the 1 million square foot facility will boast 180,000 square feet of clean room manufacturing space and create 1,000 new jobs.

To construct such a massive facility, Intel decided to call upon their old friend, the Sarens SGC-120. Intel used the same crane in 2006 to construct Fab32, their current manufacturing line. Now, the crane has returned to help with their newest facility.

Rather than have crews assemble trusses several stories off the ground, the decision was made to assemble the pieces on the ground and then use the crane to lift the trusses into place.

You can be sure that when lifting the trusses, the SGC-120 won't break a sweat. That's because it has a maximum lift capacity of 3200 tons and a maximum boom reach of 755 feet. The crane was shipped here from Belgium and was transported to the Chandler site in over 100 forty-foot shipping containers.

In fact, the crane is so large that Intel representatives have been quoted as telling the press that it needed to be assembled using other cranes. Wow!

To learn more about the crane, please visit the Sarens website. You can also find more photos of the crane at these sites:
Sarens SGC-120
Sarens SGC-120 Pictures
Worlds Largest Crane in my Backyard