| dc.description.abstract | This paper is submitted as a masters thesis in structural engineering at the University of Agder. It concerns the structural design of a novel type of dual-function deck crane. The crane is wrapped in a faring meaning it can be used as a sail when out of operation at sea. It is a concept developed by Nekkar, a client of Stål-Consult who set the task for this thesis. The task was to design the load bearing structure for the crane and - because of the importance of weight in the world of shipping – study the implications of using aluminium instead of steel. Two versions of the crane are designed, one made from steel and one from aluminium, and the results are compared.
The overarching research question was: How to design a multi-functional shipboard crane?
An effort was made to determine the design requirement for this structure. Both statutory requirement and guidelines like codes and standards was considered. The structural layout and the subsequent number of standards needed, means common structural analysis programs are insufficient to verify the design. Another challenge was ensuring the steel and aluminium solutions were equivalent, a requirements for a valuable comparison.
A workflow was developed to handle both these issues and answer the research question, using a range of generated solutions. These could then be controlled against the relevant standards in batches which made the process more efficient. The method itself was tried and tested, and the best. i.e. lightest steel and aluminium solutions were compared.
The weigh savings from using aluminium were not enough to make fiscal sense. This is partly down to the design method, but mainly the structural layout and payload capacity of the crane.
Though the design method worked in principal the “quality” of the solutions measured by level of utilization, was quite low. This was mainly down to the small number of iterations that was tested, and poor calibration of variables used to generate solutions. Developing this further would yield better results. | |