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Near my apartment is a building site with a tower crane; great fun to watch of course. This crane seems to have a lift / elevator / vertical-people-transporter (arrowed in the picture).
lift on tower crane

As far as I can see the lift is only used four times a day (morning-lunch(2x)-afternoon) which is no doubt very nice for the operator but this can hardly be cost-effective. I have seen the operator climb between the operator's cabin and the lift but never any other movement.

Probably there is some other reason for the lift, so what is it? Also, why doesn't the lift go higher? Currently the operator has to climb about 20m, I see no reason why the lift couldn't go 10m higher (the next floor).

PS Tagging was tricky and I don't have the rep to make a "crane" tag. Advice?

EDIT: In response to comments that it might be a climbing crane, added hi-res photos with lift down. There's also a photo with lift up on https://i.sstatic.net/yT6bn.jpg; I don't have the rep to add a link to it.

NL_Derek
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1 Answers1

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Disclaimer: I've never been on a tower crane.

My logical guess for the elevator stops a distance below the operator cab is two-fold:

  1. Safety - ample distance is required for the elevator to make a safe stop shall equipment malfunction occur.

  2. The elevator is limited to reach an elevation that won't interfere with the crane operation, and the ancillary equipment around (hydraulic jacks, hoses, electrical panels...)

r13
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