Commonly Used Cranes for Lifting Purposes

08 June 2018

When crane’s lift their booms above construction sites, they create artificial cityscapes. The mock architectural silhouettes are actually cranes booms, but this fact remains hidden until one of the machines mobilizes. Lighting up the area with big halogen lamps, we identify each big-league lifter. These are the commonly used cranes that convey all kinds of payloads. Check them out, they’re clearly designed to suit different lifting purposes.

Stationary Lifters

Tower cranes dominate that fake cityscape. They’re the mast-like edifices that turn slowly in place on a construction site. Made from long latticed sections, the tall tower rises until it reaches a horizontally mounted jib section. Look closely, a slewing unit is rotating the jib while a trolley section transports a hook along that working arm. Tower cranes don’t mobilize, but they’re still flexible beasts, for they’ll grow higher as a structure rises.

Crawler Cranes

Crawlers move on their plated tracks. The heavy machinery roves around areas that are awash in shifting sand or gravel. If a lifting project contains parcels of loose soil, then stability is an issue. The tracks that carry the heavy equipment, plus the boom, are clearly designed to offset stability problems. Expect squat but powerful vehicle profiles here, and understand the need for robust rigging systems, because those chunky cabins require complex load compensating mechanisms. Alternatively, intelligently engineered telescopic arms, booms loaded with hydraulics, can operate without intricate rigging systems.

Versatile Truck Cranes

Refitted or originally built with a working lift arm, truck cranes fill in the serviceability gaps. When a tower crane lacks reach, an all-terrain vehicle can’t maneuver, and a crawler can’t enter without damaging a roadway, then truck cranes are the answer. However, commonly used they may be, but there’s still a range of utilitarian factors to consider. Outriggers and secondary braking systems are desirable, especially when an assigned workload requires access to the full operational lift span of the boom.

Out-of-Box Lifting Purposes

When do these commonly used cranes intersect specialist lifting tools? Well, what about remote loads or occasions where there’s no ground whatsoever? Sky cranes are one solution, then there are harbour lifters and flat-bottomed floating cranes. Meanwhile, back at the worksite, an all-terrain vehicle is using its wide chassis, plus its many-wheeled undercarriage to get building materials safely across a rough stretch of ground. A handler crane stays behind, on flat ground, to shift pallets up to the workers on top of a structure’s rooftop.

The lifting purposes never end. Commonly used cranes are everywhere, after all, not just on the building site. Freight hauliers are shifting intermodal shipping containers, twin-rotor helicopters are going where no road can follow, and tower cranes are reaching around entire work areas without ever moving their ballasted bases.