Development and analysis of a rotary wall crane design using CAD and CAE Tools

摘要

Cranes and rigging equipment are important machines in industrial activities, construction, port operations and in many sectors that demand the lifting of high loads in a safe, controlled and efficient way. And the design of these equipment, in turn, requires the use of machine elements, mechanisms, and structures that are widely used in engineering, such as wire ropes, gears, pulleys, bolted connections, structural profiles, etc. In this work, a rotary wall crane was built in a virtual environment. The design was based mainly on the ABNT NBR 8400 standard. The software used for 3D modeling was Autodesk Inventor and the main structure of the equipment was analyzed, according to its functionality, using numerical simulations based on the finite element method. Firstly, the structure of the crane, consisting of L and U structural profiles, bolted joints, structural reinforcements and other connections, was analyzed separately. Static structural simulations were conducted in this subassembly. Concomitantly, structural calculations were performed using statics and vector mechanics methods and by the finite element analysis. In this case, the Direct Stiffness Method was used to determine the tensions in the structural elements, displacements and reaction forces. For these calculations, the MATLAB software was used. The Direct Stiffness Method and computational results have presented coherent adherence. After the verification of the results, improvements were proposed to the project, in order to provide a more appropriate operation regime and safety to the equipment. In addition, the issues that cause the results to be slightly different were discussed. This work intends to present an application of the Direct Stiffness Method to the literature and to discuss the real conditions in which it can be used in load-lifting equipment, as well as to explore, in the same context, numerical solutions obtained using the finite element method.