World’s largest tower crane put to work

Manufacturer XCMG has send the second unit of its XGT15000-600S, which it claims as the world’s largest tower crane, to serve a mega scale bridge construction project at the Changtai Yangtze River in China.

The bridge project is one of the largest diamond type cable-stayed bridge globally. Photo: XCMG

The XGT15000-600S is a super large tower crane designed to accommodate large scale construction projects. The first unit, which was completed in June 2020, was deployed to the Chao-Ma railway bridge project of the Ma’anshan Yangtze River Bridge (including railway and highway).

This second unit was sent from XCMG’s smart manufacturing facility in Xuzhou, China, and will complete a series of steel tower hoisting and installation tasks, including lifting maximum weight of 270 tonnes to the height of over 300 meters.

“XCMG’s tower cranes have conquered the world’s top technical bottlenecks, and we’re now delivering tower cranes of over 1,000+ tonne-meters in batches that are widely adopted in the constructions of bridges, power plants, stadiums and super high-rise buildings,” said Yuan Shaozhen, general manager of XCMG’s tower crane division.

The XGT15000-600S has a rated lifting moment of 15,000 metre-tonnes, maximum lifting weight of 540 tonnes and maximum lifting height of 400+ meters.

The tower crane adopts the combined design of a flat top main tower, boom auxiliary tower and manned elevator. The company said it can achieve level 12 typhoon resistance in a non-working state. It said the crane has over 60 core technology breakthroughs and achieved 10 world firsts and set 10 world records.

“XCMG will continue to promote independent R&D and tackle core technologies to bring more super-scale tower crane products that meets the increasing demand of large-scale construction projects,” said Mi Chenghong, assistant to the general manager of XCMG’s tower crane division.