I mean, yesterday I was walking in the city when I saw a huge crane installed in a field without other buildings or construction near of it. That thing was higher than anything around.
I still can’t understand how they are build. Please help.
In: Engineering
It depends on what kind of crane it is. Some cranes have a large boom that they can lay down on the ground for disassembly and transport and then extend high up in the sky when operating. These are usually quick to set up, just a few minutes. But they have limited strength as the boom needs to carry its own weight as it unfolds so it can not carry a big cab, winches, counterweights, etc on top of the crane. These are commonly known as mobile cranes and can be quite big.
But the biggest cranes that can be temporarily installed are tower cranes. These have a huge tower in the centre with the rotating crane on top containing the boom, cab, winches, counterweights, etc. The crane portion is assembled on the ground. The tower is made up of sections. There are hydraulic jacks that can lift the entire tower one section higher and then this section can be fitted to the tower making it a bit taller. You repeat this process until the tower is high enough.
These are popularly mounted in future elevator shafts of skyrises. As the building is constructed around them the tower can be anchored to the upper floors so the bottom of the tower can be dismantled. It can then be moved up making the tower crane higher as the building gets taller. Eventually the entire crane can be dismantled on the roof of the building it just constructed. The parts are lowered down by a smaller crane ready to be shipped to the next construction site.
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