Cranes for Building Construction Projects
Publication: Journal of Construction Engineering and Management
Volume 133, Issue 9
Abstract
Cranes have come to symbolize building construction itself. They perform indispensable services in moving materials and components vertically and horizontally. Used since antiquity, their history is interrelated with the development of new power sources that replaced man and mule, first steam and later internal combustion, diesel, and electric engines. Mobile cranes can be rapidly deployed to lift heavy loads. New models with telescoping booms and all-terrain travel capability, compact urban machines, and even hybrids with tower cranes are beginning to replace the familiar lattice boom truck cranes. Mobile cranes have dominated the North American market, but a cultural change appears to be taking place toward tower cranes for building projects. Tower cranes, common in Europe for decades, are globally gaining in popularity with surging real estate developments. Ideal for dense urban environments and coming with a small footprint, they are available in a growing diversity of sizes and configurations. Sophisticated electronic controls and operator assistance devices are enhancing their safe and productive operation. While cranes occupy a central role on midrise and high-rise building projects, they operate in conjunction with other types of supporting equipment that are an essential part of the overall equipment array on today’s industrialized construction sites.
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Acknowledgments
This paper was written while the first writer spent his sabbatical in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. The hospitality of the Department is gratefully acknowledged.
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Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Journal of Construction Engineering and Management
Volume 133 • Issue 9 • September 2007
Pages: 690 - 700
Copyright
© 2007 ASCE.
History
Received: Apr 4, 2007
Accepted: May 2, 2007
Published online: Sep 1, 2007
Published in print: Sep 2007
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