If counter weights on tall cranes are used for stability, why don’t the crane lean backwards without any load ?
In: Physics
They do, a little, but because the counterweights are much closer to center of the crane body, it doesn’t destabilize the whole crane.
The main issue is that the crane arm is loooong which creates a lot of torque when it’s carrying a weight, and also moves the center of gravity a lot. The counterweight isn’t just to balance the load like a seesaw. Simply making the base of the crane heavier makes it more stable. Think of how easy it is to knock over a traffic cone vs a traffic cone with sandbags on the base. So simply having extra weight down there helps stabilize it when there’s a lot of weight all the way up there and leaning out.
Putting it a little back helps extra when they know the imbalance will primarily be in one direction. But simply making the bottom heavier does tons for stability.
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