That’s not to say that there haven’t been any exciting innovations, but the pace of change has not been what it was. For this issue, I’ve been putting together my interviews from this year’s big show, ConExpo, and have found myself struck by the level of innovation we’re now seeing.
Our cover and job of the month in this issue show one of those innovations, Liebherr’s new parallel boom Powerboom for its big crawlers, designed to increase lifting capacity without the need for an entirely new cranes. Like many of the best ideas, it appears simple but is well implemented.
Big crawlers were definitely a big deal at this year’s ConExpo. Manitowoc’s new variable positioning counterweight machines, targeting jobs where high capacity is needed but ground support or space is limited, drew a great deal of attention. Across the aisle, Terex had their successor to the CC2800, the Superlift 3800 looming over the show in one of its tallest configurations.
Not every new product loomed in quite the same way, but there was still much that was truly innovative. Tadano, for example, is now seeing the fruits of its acquisition of Mantis, collaboratively building a new telecrawler that combines the Japanese manufacturer’s boom building skills with its American subsidiary’s specialisation in this unique class.
One of Sany America’s innovations was well hidden, but still exciting: a new synthetic rope in boom of its own telecrawler, which allows it to shave a few vital kilograms off of the boom weight. Similar rope was also on show on Manitowoc’s small truck cranes. While the weight saving may not be very high, it will be enough on all these machines to make a difference when users are pushing the crane to the limits of its capacity. At the right reach, kilos matter.
The latest rounds of emissions regulations have put engineering and design departments under immense strain. Talking to heads of design over recent years, I’ve heard of entire departments being kept busy for years at a time, shavin an inch here and a kile there off of existing designs in order to fit bigger compliant engines.
But that pressure has lead to a sea change in mid-range mobile crane designs. Rather than trying to fit two big engines on their highly optimised cranes, designers are now widely taking a single engine approach.
Doing that poses its own challenges, of keeping fuel costs down while idling, for example. But the designers have come up with a series of innovative solutions, often managing to use the saved weight of the second engine to increase capacity, without compromising on running costs for the crane.