How Tower Cranes Build Themselves

A look at tower cranes and how they climb to extraordinary heights.

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Video footage courtesy of The Liebherr Group:
Liebherr - Timelapse of luffing-jib crane 710 HC-L in New York City (MoMa)
Liebherr - tower cranes build the third largest double arch dam in the world
Liebherr - 357 HC-L Luffing Crane
At Icy Heights

Video Attributions:
EVERY ANGLE OF DOWNTOWN CHICAGO CAPTURED BY DRONE! [4K FOOTAGE]
Mercedes-Benz Stadium Drone Fly-Over
Salesforce Tower - Construction Journal No 2
Northwestern Mutual Tower Transforming the Milwaukee Skyline
Construction Cranes in Seattle 4K Video Clip
Newfoundland, 1 Bank Street and Landmark Pinnacle Canary Wharf River Thames London May 20 2018
Hudson Yards Construction - December 2012 through December 2017
Amazing Crane Building Itself
Raimondi ATIS YAPI Downtown Bursa
Sky Fort by A&A Architects
TOKYO REDEVELOPMENT June-December 2016
4k Aerial Drone Construction Site - Free 4k Video Backgrounds

Music from Epidemic Sound

#Cranes #Construction #ArtofEngineering

[ArtofEngineering]

I hope you find this video *uplifting* ; )

[TheHawkeye]

I was a Tower crane operator for 25 years. I figured that I climbed up and down over 300 miles in that time. During those 25 years we had 3 different times during jacking that we almost lost it, twice because of unexpected wind gusts and once because the erector in charge used the wrong counter balance. 4 other times there was some screw ups that could have resulted in a major accident but was caught just in time. I was also hit by lightning 9 times in the crane, don't let anyone tell you different you can get shocked if the door and windows are open when it hits and it sure hurts.

[gene]

answer: they jump and place a block below them

[Mr]

Finally! I see them everywhere yet they make no sense how they get taller everyday here in San Fran. Thank you for the upload!

[JakeR]

I've always wondered how this was done and the process is 10x crazier and more dangerous than I thought

[danielmoak]

I particularly enjoy that the crane to assemble the tower usually has to be assembled by a smaller crane

[TheHawkeye]

I should also tell everyone that most of the operators customize the cabins, Most a small refrigerator somewhere, a microwave or toaster oven, and a cb radio that is also considered a export radio that has a little added power and a whole bunch of channels and side channels that regular cb radios don't have. About these radios, we found that all of us could stay on some obscure channel that the employers would never be able to find and we could talk shit all daylong without ever being caught but the biggest safety thing we found was if we had 2 or 3 cranes on the same job and then another 6 or so cranes in town all the other cranes could be talking but if we saw something on our job dealing with safety with one of our cranes, we could grab the mike and over talk all the other cranes because we were so close and thereby avoid a collision or anything of that nature instead of grabbing the job site radio, switching channels as fast as you could to inform others of impending danger. These side band radios also had the added bonus that we could go to certain channels and do some skip talking. One thursday afternoon I was the last crane in town in Charlotte, NC working late and these 2 truck drivers I could hear were talking about where they were going out that night being friday and all and I'm like WTF and shot back at them that it was Thursday, and was promply told I didn't know anything, these guys were just outside Brisbane, Australia where it was Friday. We talked for 10 minutes before I lost the signal. I was also able to talk to my operator friends in Charlotte, NC while I was in Las Vegas a number of times and probably almost all of the countrys in Europe at 1 time or another, I went by the handle of BIRD1432. The height of the cranes made this possible.

[llgpe]

There’s only two requirements to be a tower crane operator:
1. A few loose screws
2. Balls of steel

[charlieross-BRM]

Fifty years ago I worked on a project of multiple apartment buildings as a laborer. During preparing the lattice for the crane pad I asked what happens to it when the construction is finished. I was told it's all left inside the building to become part of the elevator shaft structure. That made sense to me at the time. I don't know if that is still the practice in some circumstances.

[brandonlaird]

I've ironworked for a few years specializing in buck hoist work. The first conversation on the radio you know if the operator is an ace or a beginner. Had alot of badass operators who don't need a ton of hand signals or talk on the radio. Much respect to the good ones. Alot of life's are in their hands.

[deltactarchives]

Build item
- - -
Item: Tower Crane
Requires: Tower Crane

[Goncalvesbrunot]

This is literally what I do for living. I operate, repair and climb tower cranes. I have to say that you did an excellent job explaining the process. If I was going to be pedantic, I'd point out that some of your terminology is slightly off, but on the whole it's a very well done video that perfectly explains my work to people that have never seen it in action.


Great Job!!

[goofytycooner]

*I don't need sleep, I need answers*

Seriously though, I've been thinking about this for months, I thought that you'd need a crane bigger than the tower crane, which just doesn't make much sense and I knew it. But this Climbing thing finally lays the question to rest.

[RatKindler]

Cranes seem to appear overnight and I've always wondered how they were assembled. I even watched an hour-long documentary on cranes and they never mentioned how they were assembled or raised. Thanks for this!

[envoy]

There's a massive tower complex being constructed across the street from me and It really grew my interest in these cranes. I watched the crane jacks work over the weekend and was amazed by how delicate of a process it can be.I also got to the see the bottom up cranes be built and that really confused the heck out of me. The crane was inside the structure of the building. I thought the crane was attached to the very bottom level, but as the crane went high and higher I noticed that the crane structure didn't exist on the lower floors but was simply attached to the structure of the building. That crane is now maybe attached to the top 10 floors of a 60 floor building. Confused the hell out of me until i watched this video and figured out the whole scenario. There was also a point when I was gone for a week and they moved one of the cranes to the opposite side of the building and changed it from a hammerhead crane to the luffing jib crane. Not sure why exactly, might have been a design screw up.

[SDFlick]

Thank you so much for shedding light on these things in contracting that aren’t common knowledge to people outside the industry. There is so much that goes into construction that people from the outside just don’t know about or have any appreciation of.

[peterblackmore]

For a bit of history, self climbing tower cranes were invented by the Favelle brothers in Prahran, a suburb of Melbourne, Australia in about 1963. Their brand name was Favco. Four of the luffing cranes were used in the construction of the World Trade Towers. They won an Australian Export Award for that. Being diesel powered and a single cable, they had faster lift times than other cranes at the time.

[vijayshah]

If only my parents marriage was secured by high strength steel bolts.

[matthewgamman]

"which usually requires multiple strokes depending on the cylinder's length" 5:50

[rainscratch]

Fascinating to learn how this amazing engineering feat works. Equally informative is the comment thread, with added insight from crane operators, engineers and construction crew.