Kinematics of the Truck Mounted Hydraulic Cranes

Abstract

Truck mounted hydraulic cranes are widely used in the timber and in the waste disposal industry. They have a specific design, where dead weight, size in the folded position and the position of the gripper in the folded position are of particularly importance. Functionality of the crane is therefore expressed with load handling capabilities and also with the functionality during road transportation of the payload, when the crane is in the folded position on the truck. For handling of heavier loads, nowadays mainly two types of cranes are used - the K cranes and the Z cranes. The main advantage of the K cranes is higher load capacity in comparison with the Z cranes when cranes of approximately the same weight are compared. On the other hand the main advantage of the Z cranes is their capability of folding in position, transvers to truck length. In the paper the kinematics of the mechanisms of the characteristic size K and Z cranes are analysed and mutually compared. The main accent is on the discussion about their load capacity.