STRENGTH ANALYSIS OF A GANTRY CRANE OF A COATING STRUCTURE

Gantry cranes with coating construction are used in Polish steel industry much less than truss bridges. For several bridges, which span and the supports have coating construction, there were made series of non-destructive testing, which revealed the presence of numerous fatigue cracks: in the area of a beam pad, the coating, as well as other ele­ments of their supporting structure. Periodically carried out repairs and strengthening of bridges have not eliminated the problem of the emergence of more fatigue cracks. The analysis of FEM, verified by extensometer measurements of strains, gave the basis to designate the most strenuous areas of the construction. Gathered results of periodic nonde­structive testing, combined with obtained results of FEM analysis, were the basis for designing appropriate reinforce­ments and indication the scope of conducting non-destructive testing of considered construction of bridges with coating.