Mobile Gantry Design

Nowdays, developing new product design can be done so fast with the right software, in this opening post I'll shows you an overview how to made structure design for mobile gantry crane starts from raw concept until final design that ready for fabrication. Start with mobile gantry concepts which is should be light enough to achieve the mobility purpose then how many max Safe Working Load (SWL) will carry by this structure of course keep considering common material availability to gain manufacture ability that will affecting in low fabrication cost.

In this design I'll wrapped all above aspect and max SWL for this mobile gantry will carry become main issue to optimize, so my structure will be:

• Made from steel structure which is easy to get and vary in size if compared with aluminium material With steel can achieve high SWL in small dimension 
• Foldable to get storage space when not in use and easy to assembly 

First step is use Staad pro modeling to gain overall structure dimension, material selection, preliminary strength analysis. In this stage, I decide my structure will be SWL 5T x 4000mm SPAN and effective height until around 4000 mm, the structure calculation report in staad pro as per pict. below.

Applying feature "moving load" with DIN15018 as design code and BS-EN 466 as deflection criteria will result H beam for girder, Square Hollow Section (SHS) for pillars support, UNP as legs and end carriage.

Next step is advance in detailing by using solidwork, in this 3D modeling software we'll get detail for each component, investigate how its folded and assembly as it's material handling purpose, generate 2D fabrication drawing also doing motion simulation.

In this 3D environment a lifting mechanism can be set up to adjust girder height after assembly. Manual calculation for sizing bevel gears with lead screw required, so user can easily do manual lift up the girder. After all of steel structure and accessories component are selected, the last thing and optional stage is getting an overview for mobile gantry crane equipment from its folded condition to become ready to use refer to physical joint behavior that can be visualize with animation and motion analysis feature in solidwork.

Now we get the final product that ready to fabricate and launch to the market. For detail how to collaborate design code and software analysis will explain in other post. Thanks for reading and hopefully can inspire others especially young designer in this digital ages, where so many design tools are able to help you out with just by "blinked your eyes", so keep your design instinct gone wild and make it real not only circled around in your head.