Tower Cranes Grow to New Heights
In the tower crane business, the 1950s featured many important milestones in tower crane development and design. There were a range of manufacturers were beginning to make more bottom slewing cranes that had telescoping mast. These equipments dominated the construction industry for office and apartment block construction. Lots of of the top tower crane manufacturers abandoned the use of cantilever jib designs. Instead, they made the switch to luffing jibs and in time, utilizing luffing jibs became the standard practice.
In Europe, there were key improvements being made in the development and design of tower cranes. Often, construction sites were constricted places. Having to rely upon rail systems to move a large number of tower cranes, became too costly and difficult. Some manufacturers were providing saddle jib cranes that had hook heights of 262 feet or 80 meters. These cranes were outfitted with self-climbing mechanisms that enabled sections of mast to be inserted into the crane so that it can grow along with the structures it was constructing upwards.
These particular cranes have long jibs and can cover a larger work area. All of these developments led to the practice of erecting and anchoring cranes in a building's lift shaft. After that, this is the technique which became the industry standard.
From the 1960s, the main focus on tower crane development and design started to cover a higher load moment, covering a bigger job radius, climbing mechanisms and technology, faster erection strategies, and new control systems. Furthermore, focus was spent on faster erection strategies with the most significant developments being made in the drive technology department, amongst other things.