Crane Glossary
Plain-English definitions of the crane types, specifications and rigging terms used across Kranly listings.
All terms (15)
- All-terrain crane — A multi-axle wheeled mobile crane combining on-road travel speed with off-road site mobility, equipped with all-terrain tyres, outriggers, and a telescopic boom.
- Rough-terrain crane — A self-propelled mobile crane on four large all-terrain tyres, designed for off-road lifting on unprepared sites but not licensed for highway travel.
- Crawler crane — A heavy-lift mobile crane mounted on continuous tracks (crawlers) instead of wheels, used for the largest and longest-duration lifts where mobility is sacrificed for capacity and stability.
- Tower crane — A fixed-base or rail-mounted lifting machine with a tall vertical mast and horizontal jib, used for building tall structures where the crane stays on site for the duration of construction.
- Truck-mounted crane — A telescopic-boom crane permanently mounted on a commercial truck chassis, designed for fast road travel and rapid setup on prepared sites.
- Knuckle-boom crane — A truck-mounted crane with an articulated, folding boom that bends at a knuckle joint, used for unloading, material handling, and precision placement in confined spaces.
- Marine crane — A crane installed on a vessel, offshore platform, or quayside, designed for the corrosion, motion, and dynamic-load conditions of working over water.
- Gantry crane — An overhead lifting machine on legs that run along ground-level rails, used in shipyards, container terminals, warehouses, and heavy-industry yards.
- Pick-and-carry crane — A compact mobile crane designed to lift a load and then travel with the load suspended, used for repositioning materials within congested industrial sites.
- Lift capacity — The maximum load a crane can safely lift at a specified working radius and configuration, defined by the manufacturer’s load chart and never by a single headline number.
- Load chart — The manufacturer-supplied table or graph that defines a crane’s rated lift capacity at every combination of boom length, working radius, and counterweight configuration.
- Boom — The main extending or articulated arm of a crane that places the hook over the load, available in telescopic, lattice, knuckle, and folding configurations.
- Outrigger — Hydraulic extending legs deployed from a mobile crane’s chassis to widen its base, transferring lifted load to the ground through pads and preventing tipping.
- Counterweight — Removable steel or concrete masses placed on the back of a crane’s superstructure to balance the moment created by the lifted load and increase the crane’s rated capacity.
- SWL (Safe Working Load) — The maximum load a piece of lifting equipment, rigging gear, or crane component is certified to lift in service, set as a fraction of the equipment’s ultimate breaking load.