Gear Technology for Cranes
Gear Technology for Cranes
Different types of gear units are used in mobile
cranes, i.e. winch gear units ( for the specific
requirements of hoisting, level-luffing and reeving-
in winches ) as well as slew gear units fortuning
the entire crane superstructure. On larger cranes,
pump distribution gears are additionally required.
Crawler cranes obtain their mobility through travel
gear units.
Fig. 1: Crawler Crane
Here we focus on travel gear units.
What are the marginal conditions for crane travel
gear units?
The higher the stability of a crawler crane, the
greater its lifting capacity - the main characteristic
of cranes. To make a crane stable, the center of
gravity should be as low as possible. This in turn
calls for low crawler travel drives with the smallest
possible tumbler and a compact travel gear unit.
However, high tractive forces are also important.
As opposed to other crawler-mounted equipment,
Wilhelm Kursatz / LVV-M
Lohmann + Stolterfoht GmbH
Witten
Phone +49 (0) 2302 / 877-324
Fax +49 (0) 2302 / 877-404
E-mail: wilhelm.kursatz@lus.de
RE 00 207/10.00
(such as hydraulic excavators, drilling equipment,
dozers, loaders, etc.), crawler cranes require Bearing
Bearing
Chain
Chain
Bearing
Bearing
Frame
Frame
Travel Drive
Propel Drive
relatively long track chains due to the desired large
track contact surface. When the cranes travel
around corners or turn on the spot, the travel gear
units must produce extremely high torque levels.
Modern crawler truck designs require adequate
static safety to be factored into the design of
certain gear unit components, such as journal
bearings and carrying axles, so that they can resist
the high loads that occur even when the crane is
stationary, i.e. when the jib is raised, because these Fig.3: MOBILEX GFA Travel Drive
loads pass through the gear unit into the ground.
The further development of crawler trucks was
What type of gear unit is suitable for the
aimed especially at eliminating the tumbler shaft
application described above?
and its slide bearings with the appropriate
Generally, travel drives with compact planetary
lubricating system. The use of
gear units are well suited for that purpose. The
design of these planetary gear units has changed
over the years, as it has continuously been adapted Travel Drives of the
to suit the requirements that have resulted from HYDROTRAC GFT Series
the further development of crawler trucks.
Travel Gear Units of the
MOBILEX GFA Series
GFA gear units are capable of transmitting high
output torque levels, but they are not designed to
carry external loads. GFA gear units are used to
drive crawler drives featuring separately supported
tumblers. See the schematic representation (Fig. 3),
which shows also that the GFA unit is bolted
directly to the equipment frame. The use of a so-
called torsion shaft as a connecting element
between the gear unit and the tumbler has proved
Fig.4: HYDROTRAC GFT Travel Drive
very successful in practice.
made it possible to arrange the gear units under
the protective chains. The tumbler is bolted to the
annulus flange and the gear unit is pushed into
the frame and secured in the frame center. This
design requires an equipment frame with a single
bearing only (as opposed to the version featuring
a separately supported tumbler). The tumbler can
be changed without removing the travel drive. All
external loads including the chain tension pass
through the gear unit.
Fig.2: MOBILEX GFA Travel Drive
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 Gear Technology for Cranes

Fig.5 shows what is probably the most compact Finally, a special variant of the This GFT 600 N is a three-stage planetary gear unit
and most efficient gear unit variant today. This with a preceding spur gear stage. It allows the
design is based on the GFT series. It permits the GFT unit should not be left attachment of two A2FM 250 hydraulic motors.
use of a still smaller tumbler. The planetary gear unmentioned
unit has no longer an annulus flange and the The GFT 600 N is a gear unit with an integrated
tumbler is installed from the opposite side - the tumbler, as can be seen in Fig.7.
motor side. With this design, the tumbler can be
replaced only with the crawler chain opened/
removed and the travel gear unit taken out.
However, given the long service life of crawler
crane tumblers, this work is worthwile.

Fig.8: HYDROTRAC GFT 600 N Travel Drive

All mobile gear units shown here are suitable for

use with two gear units per crane as well as for
four-wheel drive variants, which have two gear
units per crawler chain.

Fig.7: HYDROTRAC GFT 600 N Travel Drive

Here the tumbler base diameter is even smaller

than the annulus diameter of the main planetary
gear stages. The external loads are directly
transmitted into the equipment frame via the
tumbler, the journal bearings (tapered roller
bearings) arranged directly below the tumbler, and
the carrying axle designed with the help of the
finite element method.

Fig.5: HYDROTRAC GFT 330 Travel Drive

The following gear unit sizes are currently

available: GFT 220 T3, GFT 330 T3 and GFT 400
T4. These three and fourstage planetary gear units,
which can be supplied either with or without a
hydraulically releasable multidisk parking brake,
are compact also in axial direction due to the use
of A2FE or A6VE plug-in motors in standard travel
drive versions (Fig.6).

Fig. 6: Travel Drive HYDROTRAC GFT 400

192 RE 00 207/10.00