Modeling, theoretical and experimental investigation of a portal crane construction

The main topic of the thesis is that Gantry cranes are a kind of overhead bridges mounted on two or more legs. It is a construction that has lifting and tranporting task by means at moving on a series of stationary rails and runway. In this study, a gantry crane with 500 kg lifting capasity, single girder and single trolley locaded in the Tecnolab of Bulent Ecevit Universty has bean examined. The most challenging part of the gantry crane under load is the main girder section. When the main girder is subjected to load, it is very important to know whether it can carry the badernot and where stress volumes are higher than other points in engineering applications locations and of this stress have been determined. In this study, by three different methods including finite element analysis, theoretical calculations and experimental study. In addition, deflection occurred on th main girderdue tu lifting loads. Besides, the gantry crane which is classified according to F.E.M standards has been examined to meet these standards. In the modeling of the gantry cranes, the Solidworks program was used and the Ansys program was used in the finite element analyses. The points at which the stress volumes obtained by the finite element analysis are highest are determined and the experimental work is carried out by sticking the strain gage to these points. Theoretically calculated values of the critical points on the main girder are also investigated. In the experimental work, the deflections were measured with comparator. The study was completed by examining the results of the stresses and deflections obtained by three different methods. Keywords: Portal crane, main girder, finite element method (FEM), strain gage, stress, deflection;