A crane truck is a crane on a truck chassis with rubber tires, allowing it to be driven on public roads. It has outriggers for stability and hydraulic jacks to lift it off the ground for increased lifting capacity. The concept originated in World War I for military use.
A crane truck is much like a crane without tracks. A crane truck places the crane arm on a truck chassis with rubber tires. This allows the truck crane to operate on public streets and be driven to a job site on its own without needing to be towed. A truck crane has outriggers that are deployed when working with the boom that keep the crane level and stable. Without outriggers, the crane would be limited in the amount of weight it could lift; it would only be able to accommodate the amount of weight the tires could support without blowing out.
The function of a crane on a job site is not easily replaceable. Lifting very heavy objects into the air and getting them into position can be difficult. The crawler crane can work well for this purpose; however, it moves very slowly and is limited to its location, since it cannot be driven on a public road. The truck crane responds to these problems by placing the boom on a tire-powered truck chassis. This allows the truck crane to be quickly hoisted to one job site and then driven to another site in a matter of minutes.
The obstacle in a crane is in its lifting capacity. As with any vehicle with tires, the tire is the determining factor in how much weight the chassis can support. The truck crane addresses this problem by mounting a hydraulic jack at each corner of the chassis. When the jacks are deployed, the crane truck is lifted into the air and the rubber tires do not make contact with the ground. The crane now functions as a non-mobile crane and is capable of lifting and supporting large amounts of weight.
Some of the earliest crane truck designs came from World War I. As countries used heavy equipment to build bunkers and improve battle sites, the need for a highly mobile crane was discovered. Many types of rubber track designs along with high speed hybrid steel and rubber track designs failed in road testing. The installation of a crane placed on the chassis of a truck quickly proved to be very useful; soon most of the countries involved in the war were operating their own versions of crane trucks. The modern crane truck can be found in many versions, from truck chassis models to purpose-built vehicles with wheels resembling bucket loaders with a boom.
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