Study On The Computer Aided Design Software Of Tower Crane

Tower Crane is the main facilities of constructional engineering. It has been applied to lots of engineering fields in national economy construction. The weight of the metal structure almost takes about 80% of the total weight of tower crane. Therefore, to ensure the strength and stability of tower crane, lightening the structure weight is one of main ways to improve its technical performance. Designing the crane is completed mostly by manual work in the past. Its characteristics are repeated calculating, lower efficiency and longer periods. With the progress of the computer's application techniques, computer aided design is playing a more and more important role in product design, which makes it more efficient and reliable.Firstly, this paper discussed concept and development methods of the computer-aided design completely and systematically, analyzing some familiar problems of software design procedure, giving the solution methods definitely. Secondly, general considerations in tower crane design were discussed, and the structural stability formula was derived in detail. Thirdly, the tower crane's metal structure design was divided into five parts on the basis of the concept of modularized design, including: boom, equilibrium boom, crest, mast and supporting pole. Mechanics calculation model, strength and stability calculation formula of each model were also given. In the process of software design, calculation program was developed by MATLAB, and user interface was created by Visual C++, data transmission among modules was realized finally through interface design to assure the Integrity and systematic ness, and calculation results were generated automatically too. Finally, in order to verify accuracy of the design software, a comparative analysis of test data in the test report on a type of tower crane QTZ4810 and data calculated by software was carried out.So far, more than ten different kinds of tower cranes had been calculated and checked by using of this software. The practical results show that using this software not only can attain accurate and reasonable results, but also is stable, reliable and efficient. Therefore, the software has great promise and is worthwhile for application.