Investigation of vibration induced by moving cranes in high-tech factories

A finite element model was developed to simulate the crane induced vibration on the floor of high-tech factories, in which the mesh include beam, plate, spring-damper, and moving wheel elements. The finite element results were first compared with the experimental measurements in good agreement. The parametric studies were then performed to study the vibration behavior of high-tech factories due to the effects of rail irregularities, slab depth, and crane speed. The rail irregularities induce the vibration of the crane and slab at their natural frequencies, and both rail irregularities and the crane acceleration induce the crane rotation in its natural frequency, so that smoothing the wheel and rail should be the first priority to decrease slab vibration. The crane speed is another important issue to influence slab vibration, which decreases with the reduction of the crane speed clearly from the parametric study. Thus, decreasing the crane speed to reduce slab vibration is an alternative, and experiments are caused to find the optimal crane speed and acceleration. The crane induced vibration is the relatively largest and smallest at the column location and beam center, respectively. Therefore, increasing the slab and beam depth to decrease the slab vibration induced by the moving crane is an additional option.