Recently, the world's largest tower crane XGT15000-600S, jointly developed by China Railway Bridge Bureau and other units, was put into use in the Changtai Yangtze River Bridge project.

The XGT15000-600S is the world's largest horizontal jib slewing tower crane and the largest public-railway cable-stayed bridge in the world.

Why a tailor-made oversized tower crane for the Changtai Yangtze River Bridge?

The Changtai Yangtze River Bridge, with a main span of 1,176 metres, is the world's largest dual-purpose cable-stayed bridge under construction.

The main tower is designed to be 352m high and is divided into 10 sections, requiring 33 lifts, with the largest lifting block weighing 323 tonnes. In order to meet the demand for extra heavy lifting at the ultra-high working surface, the tower was customised to meet the needs of the Changtai Yangtze River Bridge construction.

The XGT15000-600S has now risen to 250m, and will then slowly grow higher as the main tower of the Changtai Yangtze River Bridge grows, eventually rising to 375m and reaching a maximum lifting height of over 400m when attached. This height will break the record for the highest tower in the bridge sector.
The XGT15000-600S has a rated lifting moment of 15,000 tons and a maximum lifting capacity of 600 tons, which is equivalent to lifting 400 cars at the same time, with a lifting range of 61 meters, solving the "big problem" in the Changtai Yangtze River Bridge operation, such as heavy lifting components, high construction height and large working span.
The XGT15000-600S tower crane is equipped with a mini construction hoist inside, which can facilitate the up and down passage of the tower division and the installation and dismantling workers. It uses the technology of modular parallel combination of double booms, double side six-cylinder synchronous jacking technology, four-agency double-variable amplitude cooperative operation technology, and closed-loop balance pump control technology of hydraulic system. It makes the operation more convenient and efficient.
The XGT15000-600S adopts digital intelligent control technology and is equipped with a high performance controller. At the same time, it uses an intelligent hoisting auxiliary control system, which shows the real-time position of the hook, target position and off-target position to the tower crane driver in real time through a combination of three-dimensional and two-dimensional methods on the operation monitoring screen, and carries out automatic planning of the optimal hoisting path and automatic generation of optimal operation instructions through intelligent algorithms to ensure more accurate and safer operation.