Kind of a trivial thing,but ive heard lots of different opinions over round versus square pads.Some guys wont use round,otherguys like round because they easy to move ,especially big wet ones.42" round pretty much matches 36" square.What do you guys think?
my big ones 48" are round smaller ones 36" are square simple reason is, round are easy to move by my self 48" are also 1/3 thicker making them very heavy
Many of the medium sized hydros have round alumimum pads. Makes for easier rolling to and from the hangers on the machine. We also had 48" and 60" round multilayered plywood pads under them. We still needed at least two layers of 4 X 4 or larger blocking under that in nearly all conditions. Our company safety policy had a minimum pad size for each crane. Seemed to have been overkill in most cases but they are all still upright. Ended up that the contact area on the ground was usually square.
It has a lot more to do with surface area then shape. I like round because I can roll them around. I think the ones we use are 36 in round. Thats definitely not enough in some cases. I've had to stack 8' LVL's into 4x8 square. Hated every minute of that job.
we have some 60" round composite pads that are aprox 2" thick takes two men and a boy to load them but i never seen them so much as deflect even on grass under a 70 ton linkbelt. when your near capacity you're glad you took the effort to get them off the support truck, and the upside is they're way lighter than the alternative of 4' square 1" steel plates.