Virtual Prototyping Design For Ship-lift At Three Georges Project

The ship-lift at Three Georges Project is the biggest and most sophisticated one in the world now. It is supposed to introduce the technology of gear-rack driven mechanism and nut-screw safety mechanism from Germany. There has never been such a system to be used in our country in the past, so it is very important to carry out dynamic simulation for it.In this paper, a model of half of the ship-lift is built with ADAMS 12.0. Some parts and joints are simplified or substituted to make the model be equivalent to the real system. Firstly, a dynamic simulation is done when the ship-lift starts, goes up at a constant speed and brakes under normal conditions. The simulation results are analyzed and the torque curve of the gear-shaft is obtained as well as the critical factor for the working of the in-phase shaft. Secondly, it is simulated when the ship-lift is under abnormal conditions, especially when it is sunk. Together with what has been obtained in the first step, the changing rule of the vertical spring of the ship-lift is figured out and the safety coefficient of the entire system is got.In chapter four, Finite Element Analysis (FEA) of the driven and safty mechanisms is carried out with the results we have got in the dynamic simulation of the entire system in chapter three. Given the defections of the traditional FEA on such mechanisms, contact FEA is used and excellent results of displacement, stress etc. of the mechanisms are obtained.This model guarantees that the ship-lift work safely under normal conditions, endure twenty-centimeter-depth change of water level and brake safely under abnormal conditions. This will contribute to the manufacturing, assembly, debugging and operation of the Three Georges ship-lift, as well as to the building of other ship-lifts in our country in the future.