Tower Cranes Grow to New Heights
In the tower crane industry, the 1950s featured numerous significant milestones in tower crane development and design. There were a variety of manufacturers were starting to make more bottom slewing cranes that had telescoping mast. These types of equipments dominated the construction market for office and apartment block construction. Many of the leading tower crane manufacturers discarded the use of cantilever jib designs. As a substitute, they made the switch to luffing jibs and in time, using luffing jibs became the regular method.
In Europe, there were major improvements being made in the development and design of tower cranes. Usually, construction sites were constricted places. Having to depend upon rail systems to transport a large number of tower cranes, became too difficult and expensive. Some manufacturers were offering saddle jib cranes which had hook heights of 80 meters or 262 feet. These kinds of cranes were equipped with self-climbing mechanisms which enabled parts of mast to be inserted into the crane so that it can grow along with the structures it was building upwards.
These specific cranes have long jibs and could cover a bigger work area. All of these developments resulted in the practice of erecting and anchoring cranes in a building's lift shaft. After that, this is the technique that 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. Additionally, focus was spent on faster erection strategies with the most significant developments being made in the drive technology department, amongst other things.