University of Twente Student Theses
Reduction of support structures
Reimert, A.T.L. (2014) Reduction of support structures.
|
PDF
2MB |
| Abstract: | Huisman is a privately owned company operating globally with extensive experience in the design and manufacturing of heavy construction equipment for world’s leading on- and offshore companies. The facility in Fujian Province (Xiamen area) in China is one of the production facilities of Huisman. The production facility has been fully operational since April 2007 and delivers a significant contribution to the overall Huisman engineering and production capacity. Huisman China (HCN) is a production facility with a total area of 284,000 m2. Due to the opening of the first quayside owned by an international company in China in 2012 a large storage area is obtained. In combination with requests of clients to store their products passed the delivery date, the amount of products currently stored have rapidly increased. During storage additional support structures are used for support of the products. Amount of supports that are used for one product is, on average, equal to 19 percent of the own weight of the product. The big stock of support structures, equal to 2600 metric tons, is divided into two types; workshop supports and spreader boards. Each support has its own functions and requirements. Some of the support structures are used for different functions which has as result that they are not used in the most efficient way. By evaluating the different functions of the supports the efficiency of the support with respect to weight is increased. Spreading out the product weight over the floor and supporting the product to make sure transportation, by use of self propelled modular transport vehicles, is possible are the main functions of the supports. Investigating the current max allowable local floor pressure resulted in some remarkable findings: 1) local floor pressure is equal to the global floor pressure and 2) there are no calculations available within Huisman China about the current floor pressures. A local design institute has determined the current floor pressure according to a soil survey without providing HCN calculations. With use of different models (according to the American Concrete Institute) the validity of the current floor pressure is examined and a max allowable local floor pressure according these models is determined. These models (based on Westergaard’s equations and footing calculations) calculate the stresses in the concrete foundation. This is done for different local loadings with keeping the properties of the soil layer, laying beneath the concrete foundation into account. According these models, the max allowable local floor pressure can be increased with a factor of four up to 20mT/m2 for the big storage yard and with a factor of 15 up to 75mT/m2 for the quayside. With keeping different floor pressure scenarios in mind, new support structures are designed. During design different loading scenarios for the support structures are also taken into account. The new designs for the support structures result in a significant reduction of stock. The reduction is varying for the different combinations of max allowable floor pressure and loading conditions between 486mT up to 1186mT. This is equal to a reduction of 19 – 46% with respect to the total amount of stock at HCN and a reduction of 29 – 71% with respect to the stock that can be replaced by the new design. Further investigation about the floor pressure at HCN and evaluating more design possibilities should give final outcome about the design that will lead to support structure that is most efficient with respect to weight. |
| Item Type: | Internship Report (Master) |
| Clients: | Huisman Equipment BV, China |
| Faculty: | ET: Engineering Technology |
| Subject: | 52 mechanical engineering |
| Programme: | Mechanical Engineering MSc (60439) |
| Keywords: | Support structures, floor pressure, Quayside, Supports, Huisman China, HCN, Storage Yard |
| Link to this item: | https://purl.utwente.nl/essays/69279 |
| Export this item as: | BibTeX EndNote HTML Citation Reference Manager |
Show download statistics for this publication
Show download statistics for this publicationRepository Staff Only: item control page