Stress Analysis of Traverse Beam Crane Hook Used in Steel Melting Shops of Steel Plant by ANSYS and CATIA

The crane hook is fabricated with eight plates of 25 mm thickness and cut to the required size and dimensions as shown in the figure. The plates are riveted. Each crane hook carries 125 tones load. For this load the stress is found to be high and so high carbon steel with higher yield strength is suggested. After analyzing with different materials, a material is confirmed to be used for the manufacturing the crane hook. High Carbon Steel is suggested to be used as the material which is having high yield strength. A number of materials and designs are chosen for the use of crane hook, but from the different materials like Carbon steel, Cast Steel, SAE 1025Water quenched, SAE 1096 Oil Quenched steel and Stainless steel. Finally Carbon steel give the optimized results and the material is finalized for the fabrication purpose and the crane is working safely without any interruption since three years.


Introduction for the Scope of the Present Work
Theoretical and simulation analysis is carried out for the design of a traverse beam used in steel melting shop -II of Visakhapatnam steel plant. A crane fixed to a traverse beam is used in the steel melt shop to charge molten pig iron in a ladle to the steel converter. The analysis and simulation is carried out for the crane hook. The need for fixing the more life and high load carrying hook is the main criteria in this work [1][2][3][4].

Main Work
The crane hook is fabricated with eight plates of 25 mm thickness and cut to the required size and dimensions as shown in the figure. The plates are riveted. Each crane hook carries 125 tones load. For this load the stress is found to be high and so high carbon steel with higher yield strength is suggested. After using different materials, a material is confirmed to be used for the manufacturing the crane hook. High Carbon Steel is suggested to be used as the material which is having high yield strength.
Four materials and some designs are chosen for the use of crane hook, but from the different materials like Carbon steel, Cast Steel, SAE 1025 Water quenched, SAE 1096 Oil Quenched steel and Stainless steel [5][6][7][8]. Finally Carbon steel give the optimized results and the material is finalized for the fabrication purpose and the crane is working safely without any interruption since three years [9].

Methodology
The crane hook is constructed using eight plates of 25 mm thickness and cut to the required size and dimensions as shown in the figure 1. The plates are riveted [10][11][12][13][14]. Each crane hook carries 125 tones load. For this load the stress is found to be high and so high carbon steel with higher yield strength is suggested [15][16][17][18][19]. This is reflected in the table titled ANLYSIS.
The following are the various steps involved in the analysis of each pin used in traverse beam assembly [20][21][22][23]. The steps are as follows. Preferences

Results and Discussion
Results are obtained from analysis of Crane hook using ANSYS for 125tons load acting on Crane hook. The maximum von-mises stress is 348.56N/mm 2 and the maximum Principal stress is 356.49 N/mm 2 . Hence material No.5 is selected for Crane Hook at 125 tons load by using a factory of safety of 4.

Conclusion
a. A traverse beam crane hook carrying a load of 250 tons has been designed, fabricated, tested and put into service in SMS-II (Steel Melting Shop-II) of Visakhapatnam Steel Plant. b. Theoretical analysis has been carried out with the aid of CATIA and ANSYS software to predict the stress exerted on the traverse beam crane hook. This theoretical analysis was carried out before applying the actual load on the crane with traverse beam. c. Since the payload is hot molten metal and any failure of the components could be disastrous in terms of human life, injury, and other economic costs, a factor of safety of 4 was considered in the design process. d. Manual calculations of von Mises and principal stresses were also carried out. These values compare fairly well with the ANSYS results for all components. 182 MPa with manual calculation vs. 169 MPa of ANSYS results for pin 1; 163 MPa with manual calculation vs 181 MPa with ANSYS for pin 2). e. Material selection was done from a set of available materials and choice was made based on that material which exceeded the minimum stipulated factor of safety.