wizardOfScience

I think they plan to cut down the tower and saw it into joists basically. The tower wall should be thick enough to allow for that. You will loose some material ofcourse but most of it should be possible to use in construction.

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The crane manufacturing business case is not driven by material efficiency to the same degree. It is a tool that needs to be reliable and have performance in operations. Limit the need for man hours through ease of use etc. It should also be able to take many assembly/disassembly cycles.

Thus does the amount of material not matter as much in a crane.

For wind turbine towers the material cost can be >>50% of the installed cost.

A wind turbine tower is essentially a cantilevered beam resisting the bending moment from lateral wind loads. The loads can come from any direction. Bending induces stresses in any beam that increase with distance from the centre. A thin walled hollow tube is the most material efficient design theoretically as it concentrates the load bearing materials along the perimeter of the beam. Any deviation from this incurs material that is not fully utilised.