Gantry Girder Design Basis
Gantry Girder Design Basis
Gantry Girder Design Basis
Overhead travelling cranes are used in factories and workshops to lift heavy
materials, equipments, etc and to carry them from one place to the other.
These cranes are either hand operated or electrically operated. The crane
consists of a bridge spanning the bay of the shop. A trolley or a crab is
mounted on the bridge. The trolley moves along the bridge. The bridge as a
whole moves longitudinally on rails provided at the ends.
The rails on either side of the bridge rest on crane gantry girders. The gantry
girders are the girders which support the loads transmitted through the
travelling (moving) wheels of the cranes as shown in figure below.
The effect of cranes to be considered under the imposed loads should include
the following:
a) The vertical loads with full impact from one loaded crane, or two cranes in
case of tandem operation, together with the vertical loads, without impact,
from as may loaded cranes as may be positioned for maximum effect, along
with maximum horizontal thrust (surge) from one crane only or two cranes
of tandem operations.
The lateral thrust (surge) and the longitudinal thrust, acting respectively
across and along the crane rail, need not be assumed to act simultaneously.
The effect of both the forces should however be investigated separately.
While investigating the effect of earthquake forces, the resulting effect from
dead loads of all the cranes parked in each bay positioned for the maximum
effect should be considered.
Where the wind load is the main load acting on the structure, no increase in
the permissible stresses is allowed.
The gantry girder is designed on the assumption that either of the horizontal
forces, transverse to the rails or along the rails, act the same time as the
vertical loads including the impact load. The horizontal forces act at the rail
level. The gantry girder is subjected to bending in vertical plane as well as in
horizontal plane along with twisting., the design calculations are simplified
by providing a channel at the top flange of the girder, and neglecting the
bottom flange for transverse load computations. The transverse loads are
comparatively small and this simplification in design calculations does not
result in serious error. The channel section provides flange areas to resist
bending in horizontal plane due to horizontal forces acting in transverse
direction. It increases moment of inertia about y-y axis. The flange of
channel section resists the bending in the horizontal plane. The bending of
the crane gantry girder occurs about the vertical axis as well as about the
horizontal axis of the member. The actual bending stresses for bending of
the girder in the vertical and horizontal planes are computed. The combined
bending stresses are taken as the sum of the two calculated fibre stresses.
The combined bending compressive stress is should be less than or equal to
the allowable bending compressive stress.
1 Vertical loads
(a) for electric overhead cranes 25 per cent of maximum static wheel loads
(b) for hand operated cranes 10 per cent of maximum static wheel loads
(a) for electric overhead cranes 10 percent of weight of trolley and weight
lifted on the crane
(b) for hand operated crane 5 percent of weight of trolley and weight
lifted on the crane.
3 Horizontal force along the rails 5 percent of the static wheel loads
The term, maximum static wheel load needs explanation. The extreme
position of the crab with respect to the span of crane gives the maximum
reaction on one of the gantry girders. This reaction is distributed equally
among the crane wheels. The reaction on each wheel is termed as the
maximum static wheel load.