Real Estate Infrastructure Archives

Advancement Of Modern Society Real Estate Infrastructure

13/10/2019

Your City Wouldn’t Be the Same Without These Mobile Cranes

Nathan Ivan

Keeping a city safe, moving and beautiful is a collective effort. Hundreds of people across several disciplines work every day to make your city a great place to be. A sign of industrial and infrastructure development, city cranes are among the most important tools that keep metropolises moving.

Whether a stationary crane or a mobile boom truck crane, city cranes fulfil a plethora of needs. In recent years, the biggest development has been not just in capability, but how flexible they have become in terms of capability.

In this post, we’ll take a look at five of the most common types of city cranes and truck cranes.

Make no mistake city cranes have made modern living possible.

Tree Cutting and Trimming Cranes

Cranes can be great aids for those in the tree cutting industry. Truck cranes are particularly indispensable if trees have been damaged by a storm and are unsafe to climb. Even large trees or those located on compact residential plots require truck cranes to remove them safely. Similarly, tree trimming is essential to ensure the safety of pedestrians and vehicles from falling branches.

Did you know truck cranes are also used to move, replant and stabilize trees that have been damaged!

Construction Cranes

Construction cranes come in all types of configurations – some mobile, others static. Not only are construction cranes essential for the growth of the economy and creating jobs, they are considered a real metric of growth and prosperity. The more construction cranes a city has, the more prosperous it is considered.

These cranes are either temporarily built or attached to a motor vehicle. Most construction cranes are telescopic cranes. Stationary cranes are used to hoist large, heavy loads at commercial building sites. At residential sites, mobile cranes are sufficient to handle all material and equipment lifting needs.

More about boom truck cranes

WATCH: Our trucks in action

5 Cool jobs cranes are used for

How hydraulic systems are used in mobile cranes

Streetlight & Overhead Cable Cranes

Just like cranes are really helpful for those working with trees that can’t support much weight, cranes have made repairing streetlights and overhead cable installation much more efficient. Mobile cranes enable rapid movement of crews from one point to another. Once there, a lifting platform ensures workers a stable surface to step on and enough room to manoeuver safely.

Car Towing & Accident Recovery Cranes

Cranes also play a key role in car towing and accident recovery. Transporting broken or crashed vehicles requires a truck-mounted crane is the best and fastest way to remove it from the road. A network of tow and accident recovery cranes means traffic isn’t stationary for long.

Industrial mobile cranes

Any growing city needs industry to sustain jobs, and industrial cranes certainly do their part. Small and mid-size businesses, in particular, rely on small mobile cranes to lift and haul cargo and equipment. In fact, some production operations employ the same crane for various different tasks around the facility. It speaks volumes about modern modular boom crane design for mobile cranes.

Bik Hydraulics has become known as one of the largest and most respected new and used boom truck crane sellers across all of North America. Our customers trust us for reliable and well-engineered cranes.

Advancement Of Modern Society Manufacturing & Industrial Productive Environments Real Estate Infrastructure

15/09/2019

5 Cool Jobs Cranes are used for Around the World

Nathan Ivan

If steel and concrete are the building blocks of the world as we know it, cranes are the indispensable workhorses that put them together. There are all types of cranes – from small mobile cranes to towering construction cranes that are taller than high-rise buildings themselves.

Think Thor is the mightiest avenger? You haven’t seen what these types of cranes can do!

Think crane and immediately your mind goes to construction cranes. However, cranes have permeated far and wide. Today, cranes perform a whole host of tasks, some that truly fall in the category of cool.

Here are 5 fascinating types of cranes. And their impact on your life is much greater than you can imagine.

Global shipping

Literally the backbone of globalization, vast gantries load and unload thousands of containers on and off post-panamax ships. Gantry type cranes are semi-mobile. Installed on rails, gantries are able to run parallel to docked vessels. The jib remains raised till the ship has docked and then positions itself over the containers. The World Bank estimates that over 750 million containers passed through the world’s 50 busiest ports in 2017 – and all have been handled by mobile cranes! Gantry cranes make the world economy possible – and deliver that brand new iPhone into your hand.

Tallest gantry: 220 feet

Strongest gantry crane: 20,000 metric tons

Building Boeings

You’ve surely heard at least one of the many interesting facts about Boeing’s factory in Everett, Washington. It is the largest building on Earth – so large that it is said the Disneyland theme park can fit inside it! If that’s not enough, the building has its own micro-climate, with clouds forming. So the 26 overhead cranes that run across 60 km of track have their work cut out. Wondering when your plane first flew? Probably when, in Boeing’s plant, one of these mighty overhead cranes lifted and ‘flew’ a near complete jet over other planes and thousands of workers. Building mounted cranes also have to be able to balance both facets – incredible lifting strength and fine control over movement.

Overhead crane capacity: 40+ tons

Making movie magic

This one needs a bit of a spoiler alert. Gasping as your hammer wielding superhero takes flight? It’s a crane that made that bit of movie magic possible, or brought the director’s eccentric vision to life. Crane shots are integral to movie making; cinematography, special effects and more rely on movie set cranes. Camera cranes are much smaller than their heavy lifting brethren, but far more adaptable. These jib cranes can be remote controlled, shaped to suit confined space and are… shhh… extremely silent.

Number of Superman flights filmed: 19 per day

Construction cranes

The humble construction crane is, truly, the most underappreciated asset of the construction industry. Construction cranes are actually tower cranes. Fixed to one point in the ground, construction cranes serve one purpose: lifting. Some are specialized, but most building cranes are used to lift steel beams, heavy construction loads – even elevators! It’s why tower crane operators require so much training. You need incredible spatial awareness and foresight when you are working with hundreds of people on the construction site and the smallest mistake can cause fatalities.

Tallest tower crane: Over 400 feet tall

Strongest construction crane: 120 tons

Mobile cranes

Another equally unassuming type of crane is the mobile crane, or crane truck. These are everywhere, doing virtually everything. A mobile crane is typically self-propelled. What it means is it can drive to the job site; configure into a lifting platform with jacks; extend the jib and be ready for business. Almost like a Transformer this, mobile crane, is. Only, instead of shooting lasers it has almost alien lifting powers! Crane trucks can be configured with a number of boom and jib variations, making them extremely versatile.

Strongest truck crane: 1200 tons

Tallest mobile crane: Over 300 feet

Cranes are truly modern marvels. Floating cranes (ships designed especially for lifting) can lift over 14000 tons – on water! The International Space Station has a crane arm (designed and built right here in Canada!) that perform incredibly delicate tasks, transport astronauts and material, and even walk from one end of the ISS to the other!

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