I was wondering what you all think the cranes of the future will look like. I'm not talking about in the next 10yrs, i mean 20 + years from now.

All the technology that's out, being tested such as Carbon fiber pendants *liebherr* or even Carbon fiber Lattice boom.

We can all take a look at the new Liebherr's and see a huge change in technology. Take a Manitowoc 4100 and compare that to a 555. Cranes have come along way since those days.

Manitowoc has come a long with with their cranes. I still see more 4100's around my area then I really do anything else. The other crane I see more of then anything is the 2250, I don't think Manitowoc will ever stop producing the 2250. It's a great crane, stable, powerful, balanced and you've got many configurations.

Manitowoc tried something new, that hasn't ever been done and that was the 777/777T. The 777 at first wasn't a success, Like many prototypes it had it's problems with mail cylinder failure. They are still widly used around the country.
They have a 31000 coming out and honestly from what I have seen, it should make for one pretty sweet crane. The variable counterweight system is a part of what this post is about. The future/technology. I've shown the pictures to operators that are friends and can't believe it. I can't wait till we can get more info on the crane, and the model in our displays!!

Now we have the worlds largest mobile hydro the Liebherr LTM-112000-9.1 and the Demag TWIN CC8800 which is the largest crawler built.

As things continue to get bigger and heavier, what do you guys see for the future of cranes? If you would have asked me 10 years ago about a Twin boom crawler able to pick over 3,000tons I wouldn't have believed you.

Where do you guys see for the future of cranes? Will the TWIN CC8800 be out dated by an even larger Twin 9900? or maybe even a TWIN 12600?

While talking fictional, how this for an idea.. We all have seen pictures of that beast Liebherr released right? The LTM-112000 9.1 well we know there's a crawler version being developed, Do you guys ever think we'll see something like... A Twin 11200? Think about it for a second, I know it's out there but what if...

A twin boom Hydro? Never thought a Twin Boom capable of a pick and carry of 3k+ tons. Picture something on tracks with 2 LTM-112000 booms...

Honestly none of us can predict the future, if we could what do you think the future of cranes will look like? In a sense, I think of it almost like the video game race. For example, Nintendo released the Wii, once released they start working on the next system.

I can only wonder what's on the drawing board at Liebherr, Manitowoc, Demag, Grove and Link Belt. Got any ideas? Share them I would love to see what you all think!!

Bryan!

http://pope-design.net/

Their site has been posted here before, but it's always interesting to look at. If you look to the future of the excavating/earthwork aspect of some of their designs, it's likely in the future that a machine will not really need an operator to have it function. With developing Artifical Intelligence, GPS and the constant evolution of computers, in theory large earthmoving projects could be completed with a small team of "engineers". With GPS monitoring various aspects like position on the project, elevation, depth of cuts and fill, and other info, the machines would be be self sufficient. GPS is already making "old school" skilled operators less needed. Put an individual with minimal dozer experience into a machine and for the most part if he pays attention to the pretty lights you've got a borederline "finish grade" operator. Plenty of companies and the military currently are working on GPS guided vehicles. That coupled with advanced robotics, I think in the future we could see small high-tech companies providing advanced earthmoving along with other aspects of construction. My comments arent quite "crane related", but I think Pope Design has got some interesting designs of both cranes and equipment.

Jay

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Don't call it a comeback, I've been here for years.

crane op , the changes i've seen are hard to believe. i gotta disagree about one thing you said . the 2250. the basic crane is a horse, the machinery that makes it go is junk. the friction clutch setup is way outdated with the air brakes and only one drive motor. i look for them to do a major redesign in a 300 tonner. the 2250 was a bunch better than the m-250 but its time to move on. something with a live mast like the rest of the line (way easier to self erect),independant hoist motors, better pump drive set-up,get rid of the air compressor and the air brakes, beef up the rotating beds and carbodies where the crack repeatedly. the best iron they are cranking out for their size would be the 999. can't see any big changes needed.
these opinions are just my 2 cents worth. i've been working on the 2250's since they came out.

Personally I don't think that we will see cranes that will lift 5000, 10,000, 15,000 tonnes in the near future, but advances in technology that will allow crane to lift heavy loads higher. Most large cranes have SSL on them now to help. Will there be a need for a twin hyrdaulic boom crane, who knows. Thats all I know it's going to be exciting to see what comes out. I now this is a bit off topic, but in Heathrow terrminal 5, they have driverless cars that will drive you from the carpark to the terminal. They run on roads with sensors in them. The cars have sensors looking for other cars. Creepy but facinating.

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Great topic! We should always have a thread like this open.

Just like many of the other people here, I don't know a lot about cranes, but what I've seen in heavy equipment in general over the years is that the looks don't ever change all that much. Corners get rounded off, and some parts are made of plastic instead of steel, but a Cat still rides on tracks and has a blade up front.

What is certain to change is the thinking that the machine does for the operator. I would venture to say that the 2028 models from Liebherr, and Manitowoc, and Grove and Link Belt will do more to make safe lifting calculations--look at that simulator that was posted about from the Link Belt site a few days ago (http://www.3dliftplan.com/). Tower cranes will benefit from safety measures that not only assist the operator with routine pics, but will close the gap with jumping sections and preventing collapses that happen while adding sections--because there seems to be a lot of this lately. There has always been a drive do to more with less--greater forces with smaller machines, but I'm just not sure how much you can accomlish with cranes. Physics seems to be much more of a limiting factor here than in dirt machines. I think the drive will be to improve safety and reliabilty more than capacity or employing exotic materials.

One thing that will always be neccessary--portability. It's amazing to see wind farm construction going on with these HUGE crawler cranes, knowing they have to be broken up into a dozen truckloads, hauled to the absolute middle of no place and assembled so they can crawl along a five mile long site to erect wind turbines. How much extra dirt work has to be done so these large cranes can traverse the site, and how many potential sites are denied permits because of this extra work would "impact sensitive habitat?

Bigger isn't always better. Take Big Musky for example, it was just to big to do maintenance on. Simple thinks were just huge tasks due to the size of the beast. When you start talking 85 loads to move the basic crane for the Manitowoc and look at the cost of fuel it is costing more and more to move larger cranes. Moving a twin CC8800 would not be cheap. It is just a point to think about is all.
Fritz

Interesting topic gents even though I'm not a crane guy.

Another way of thinking about this is that maybe the exotic materials such as carbon fibre and special alloys etc will become even lighter reducing the necessity to lift ever increasing loads - to some extent anyway.

Although, there will always be the exception to the rule.

RPFowler and Renaultman , in reference to the Automatic Guided Vehicles you discussed at T5 in Heathrow, a number of years ago I worked on the development and comissioning of some autonomous vehicles when I worked for British Steel Stainless that were automated steel coil transporters, using more advanced technology than that employed at T5 whereby sensors or metal strips in the road are not necessary.

The method uses lasers and triangulation in order to determine the vehicles position within a building to an accuracy of less than a couple of millimetres in a building that was around 300 metres by 300 metres.

Additionally, GPS can be used for a similar application such as the one used by the Danish armed forces whereby an autonomous vehicle, which is diesel powered tows a sled target whcih tanks fire at on the beach for example - pics below.

Another application in use is that of port ship unloading cars that are autonomous, diesel powered and take away the containers unloaded and loaded at container terminals in Holland.

The systems and photos can be found at the FROG navigation website below if anybody wants further information or examples of this very interesting technology, however I have included some below of the mooncat - pictures from the FROG navigation website.





FROG navigation systems

cheers

Chris

RPFowler,

I agree that software systems are becoming ever more complex and half of the problem with the code that will have been used at terminal 5 is it will not have being developed to an integrity level. In laymans terms, there is no emphasis to make it perfect, in a similar manner to games or most operating systems.

The other half of the problem here lies in the specification and the foresight or lack of it, of the people that specified the requirements for the system. Ultimately cost is the real driver of everything and being that it is easier and more importantly cheaper (until something like this happens) to programme in any old development environment then compile it with a compiler that has not been validated then anything can result. Add to this the integrity of the language used and the fact that complex codes cannot be exhaustively tested then I cannot see why everyone is so suprised about the failure of the T5 baggage system.

Chris