Intelligent Technology for Truck Crane Accident Prevention

Abstract

Sideand shock-loading of cranes can cause boom and turret drive gear failures with fatal results. However, traditional overload systems do not protect against these types of critical loading conditions, and crane capacity charts only consider the normal loading case, vertical lifts. In the maintenance of bridges, crane operators in any state department of transportation are presented with situations in which they have to pull debris and entire trees that are lodged against bridges. Dragging and shock-loading are commonplace. Researchers from the Construction Automation and Robotics Laboratory at North Carolina State University have developed an innovative crane monitoring system capable of warning an operator who enters a danger zone and storing information about critical events on an electronic device. Acting like a black box on an airplane, the storage device allows this information to be downloaded by a supervisor in order to assess how a particular crew “worked” the crane. This paper presents the results of this project and discusses the basic components of the accident prevention system for cranes.