Tower Cranes Grow to New Heights
In the tower crane business, the 1950s featured many important 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 machinery dominated the construction business for apartment block and office construction. Many of the leading tower crane manufacturers didn't use cantilever jib designs. Instead, they made the switch to luffing jibs and in time, the use of luffing jibs became the regular practice.
In Europe, there were major improvements being made in the design and development of tower cranes. Usually, construction locations were tight places. Having to depend upon rail systems to move several tower cranes, became too inconvenient and expensive. A number of manufacturers were providing saddle jib cranes which had hook heights of 262 feet or 80 meters. These types of cranes were equipped with self-climbing mechanisms which allowed parts of mast to be inserted into the crane so that it can grow along with the structures it was constructing upwards.
These specific cranes have long jibs and can cover a larger work area. All of these developments resulted in the practice of constructing and anchoring cranes in a building's lift shaft. Afterwards, this is the method that 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 larger job radius, climbing mechanisms and technology, faster erection strategies, and new control systems. Moreover, focus was spent on faster erection strategies with the most significant developments being made in the drive technology department, among other things.