World's First and Largest Tower Crane Receives Recognition from 11 Industry Experts in Technical Appraisal

XUZHOU, China, Dec. 16, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- The XGT15000-600S, the world's largest tower crane with the biggest double-boom parallel combination that is jointly developed by XCMG Machinery (SHE: 000425, "XCMG") and China Railway Major Bridge Engineering Co., Ltd. ("MBEC"), has recently been recognized by 11 leading industry experts in technical appraisal for its advanced technological achievements and production performance.

The development team of XCMG and MBEC solved the bottlenecks of super-large lifting capacity and lifting height. The XGT15000-600S tower crane has achieved four major technological breakthroughs and is advantaged in terms of high safety level, intelligent technology, strong functionality, high quality, precise modules, and excellent performance.

"The XGT15000-600S has a rated lifting moment of 15,000t•m, a maximum lifting capacity of 600t, an overall weight of over 4,000 tons, a maximum independent height of 92.5 meters and a maximum attachment height of 400 meters," said Mi Chenghong of XCMG.

Four major breakthroughs powering up the world's largest tower crane

XCMG has successfully created the XGT15000-600S super tower crane with a decade of continuous exploration and development as the foundation.

• The parallel combination boom system design technology for tower cranes with large lifting capacity and lifting height has created a new spatial dispersion distribution of hoisting wire ropes and proposed a new configuration of double-boom parallel combined tower crane with four trolleys and four lifting hooks. It solved the problem of super-large lifting weight of 600 tons and the height of 400 meters, greatly improving the production, transportation, and installation of super-large boom structure.
• The multi-mechanism, high-security coordinated operation and precision control technology for the super-scale tower crane pioneers a cooperative operation technology for the four-mechanism, double-amplitude tower crane. It tackles the problem of reliable synchronization of multi-mechanism, multi-cylinder large-tonnage tower cranes as well as cylinder failure to boost control precision, reliability, and safety.
• The high-efficiency application of multi-functional combination and design technology for automatic trimming and continuous jacking structure brings a new multi-combination and efficient application use mode of the tower crane, greatly improving the product use efficiency. The automatic trimming and continuous jacking technology also elevates the jacking efficiency.
• The status monitoring and intelligent maneuver technology for super-scale tower crane leverages digital twin technology to monitor the whole process of the tower crane's structural stress, deformation, vibration, and handling data in real-time, achieving digitalized, visualized, and intelligent operation of the auxiliary lifting control.

The XGT15000-600S was developed over the course of 14 months. Officially launched and delivered on June 2, 2022, the tower crane breaks through more than 60 core technologies, set 10 world records, and achieved 10 industry firsts. In total, the project applied for 72 patents, 47 patents have been authorized. It applied for 35 patents for invention, with 10 already being authorized, alongside three software copyrights.

The mega tower crane has served in the constructions of major bridges, including the Changtai Yangtze River Bridge, which is the world's largest highway and railway cable-stayed bridge with main tower of 352 meters, maximum hoisting module weight of 330 tons and hoisting height of 370 meters, as well as the largest three-tower cable-stayed bridge – Chao-Ma Railway Bridge of the Ma'anshan Yangtze River Bridge with main tower of 345 meters, maximum hoisting module weight of 505 tons and height reaching 365 meters.

The XGT15000-600S has completed an accumulative 5,000 hours of operation, presenting robust lifting capacity, smooth operation, precise control, high-efficiency assembly, and disassembly with intelligent operation enabled.