PSI - Issue 57

Elena Sidorov et al. / Procedia Structural Integrity 57 (2024) 316–326 Author name / Structural Integrity Procedia 00 (2019) 000 – 000

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Fig. 8. Geometry of contact area: (a) uniform gap modelling according to Figure 5b, (c) wedge-shaped gap modelling according to Figure 5c

4.3. Parametric study

4.3.1. Overview

Four parametric studies are presented in the following that refer to the FE model of the reference case as described in 4.2 with a wedge-shaped gap of size g con = 50 µm. Wheel load magnitudes ranging between 0 and 100 kN are considered as relevant for light crane service. Therefore, the comparison lays the focus on this wheel load range. Moreover, the results of the FE models are compared with the outcome of Eq. (3) that is proposed by Kuhlmann et al. (2022) to estimate the weld pressure.

4.3.2. Crane rail size

The effect of the crane rail size on the weld pressure p depending on the wheel load level is shown in Figure 9a. Two different rail sizes are compared. The continuous curves represent the FE results for the reference case with rail 50  30 mm and for a greater rail size of 60  60 mm. The broken curves show the corresponding results of Eq. (3). For the reference case, the difference between Eq. (3) and the FE model varies between -14% and +32% for wheel loads up to 100 kN. For the stiffer rail, Eq. (3) always gives safe-sided results and overestimates the weld pressure up to 71% within the relevant wheel load range.

4.3.3. Stiffness of crane runway beam

Figure 9b shows how the stiffness of the crane runway beam affects the weld pressure p . The continuous curves represent the different beam types of Table 1. The broken curve shows the corresponding results of Eq. (3) that are independent of the crane runway beam stiffness.