Tower Cranes Grow to New Heights
In the tower crane industry, the 1950s featured many significant milestones in tower crane development and design. There were a variety of manufacturers were beginning to make more bottom slewing cranes which had telescoping mast. These machinery dominated the construction business for both apartment block and office construction. Many of the top tower crane manufacturers discarded the use of cantilever jib designs. In its place, they made the switch to luffing jibs and in time, using luffing jibs became the standard method.
Manufacturers based in Europe were also really important in the design and development of tower cranes. Construction areas on the continent were often tight areas. Relying on rail systems to transport several tower cranes, became very inconvenient and costly. Some manufacturers were offering saddle jib cranes that had hook heights of 80 meters or 262 feet. These kinds of cranes were equipped with self-climbing mechanisms that enabled sections of mast to be inserted into the crane so that it could grow along with the structures it was constructing upwards.
These specific cranes have long jibs and can cover a bigger work area. All of these developments led to the practice of building and anchoring cranes in a building's lift shaft. After that, this is the method which became the industry standard.
From the 1960s, the main focus on tower crane design and development started to cover a higher load moment, covering a bigger job radius, faster erection strategies, climbing mechanisms and technology, and new control systems. In addition, focus was spent on faster erection strategies with the most significant developments being made in the drive technology department, amongst other things.