How Do Cranes Get Built on Skyscrapers?

How Do Cranes Get Built on Skyscrapers?
How Do Cranes Get Built on Skyscrapers?

New York is famous for its skyscrapers, and the 10 tallest NYC buildings all stand over 1,000 feet.

Cranes are one of the most important components of building skyscrapers, but you may find yourself wondering “how do cranes get built?”. For tall buildings such as skyscrapers, standard cranes don’t quite cut it.

Other types of cranes, such as knuckle boom cranes, are far more versatile. They’re also easier to set up but are limited in ways tower cranes are not (i.e. size and load capacity).

This crane building guide gives an overview of how tower cranes are built on top of skyscrapers.

How do Cranes Get Built on Top of Skyscrapers?

Cranes have several purposes such as forestry, railway construction, and waste management. The place they are most commonly seen, however, is in built-up urban areas.

There are specific types of cranes and methods for building skyscrapers. There are three main methods that make today’s tallest buildings possible.

External Climbing

This involves building a crane using its own hoisting power. The base is initially secured in a concrete slab in the ground, and it is then assembled using smaller mobile cranes. It stays at this point until the building reaches about 180 feet in height.

Steel collars are then used to attach the crane to the outside of the building. A special climbing section allows workers to attach new segments. This is a sheath on the outside of the crane tower that raises and supports the arm above the highest vertebra.

A new tower segment is then placed in the sheath where workers can secure it properly. This process is repeated roughly every 180 feet to fully construct the building.

This is the most common method, as it allows construction to continue inside the building while the external structure is still being completed. Removing parts is also a simpler process as the crane can move back down on the outside of the bending and secure itself to the ground anchor.

Internal Climbing

Internal climbing involves the crane being in the center and constructing the building around itself.

A hydraulic cylinder sits at the base of the crane and allows it to be raised whenever needed. Steel beams are then slid beneath it to keep it securely placed.

For this method, the crane needs to be raised roughly every 100 feet.

Skycrane

This third method is somewhat different from the other two methods of crane building. A heavy-lift helicopter flies the crane, piece by piece, to the top of the construction site.

There are some notable downsides to this:

• Individual segments can weigh anywhere between 3,000 and 20,000 pounds
• It can be very expensive
• Flying a load-bearing helicopter over populated areas is logistically difficult

Of these three methods, this is the least common due to these downsides.

What Else Should You Know About Cranes?

There are a lot of questions you could ask. How do cranes get built? What are the most common uses? How much weight can cranes support?

Our blogs cover these questions and more crane-building tips.

Cranes used for building skyscrapers are just one of many types. For an explanation of the other common types of cranes commonly used in construction take a look at our guide here.

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