Crane sheave — basic design principles Keywords Good design principles — economic design — avoiding failures. Principles: short force paths — uniform strength — balanced forces — anticipating deformations. Design optimisation and choice. 3.1 Objectives This is an exercise in not developing bad habits. It is about good design principles. Design is multidisciplinary, involving theories and rules from the worlds of thermodynamics, fluids, statics, dynamics and others. Some basic principles however are very common, appearing in most mechanical designs, whatever their particular discipline ‘mix’ or specialism. The good thing is that these principles are simple — they are also worth learning, not because they will guarantee you a good design but because of the way in which they can help you avoid producing very bad ones. 3.2 The crane sheave hanger Cranes use a system of pulley mechanisms to help lift the load, The pulleys may be single or ganged depending on the application. Pulleys are located within a fabricated steel sheave — an arrangement which holds the pulley spindles (or ‘pins”) so that the pulleys can revolve. The simple design shown in Fig. 3.1 uses a ‘hanger-type’ sheave — this is common on small utility cranes up to a safe working load (SWL) of 5 tonnes. The hanger is bent from low carbon steel sheet and fits over a machined pin which is supported by two frame plates. This design looks straightforward enough. We will now look at five basic design principles: * economic functions; # force transmission; © force balance; © uniform strength; * matched deformations. Try to follow the descriptions of these five design principles. It is the idea that it is important — they are outlined in general engineering terms, for similar applications, but not in the context of the crane sheave hanger (that is your job).Crane sheave — basic design principles Sheave frame 60mm sheave pin dia 45mm i . mm E Sheave hanger g i" K dia 30mm Paley spindle Rope pulley Crane hook Figure 3.1 The crane sheave assembly Economic functions This is a poor but commonly used title. It means: pay attention to the division of tasks within the design. The objective is to make sure that each component has a well-defined task and each task is allocated to the component that can best do that task (not one of the others). The next step is to look for areas of task economy, where a single component part can do more than one task. Figure 3.2 shows how this division of tasks works in practice, for a V-belt driven shaft. The big danger in deciding division of tasks is over-complication; it is always necessary to optimise and sometimes compromise design features to stop this happening.Case Studies in Engineering Design The pulley provides the belt drive Poor ‘economic function’ Drive ye The shaft provides the torsion Lightweight Pulley is an integral part of the shaft pulley ‘and so is solid: waste of material and harder to manufacture Figure 3.2 Basic principle — division of tasks Force transmission Most engineering designs involve the transmission of force in one of its forms. The definitions are not too rigid; force caused by a simple loading can manifest itself as complex torsional, shear or bending forces as well as the simple tensile or compressive cases. The principle is that force is best transmitted in straight lines (you can think of these as force “flowlines’ through a component). This is achieved by avoiding offset loadings, large deflections and sharp changes of cross-section, all of which can concentrate these ‘lines of force’, causing stress concentrations. Figure 3.3 shows the principle for a simple machine mounting. Load Ww Load W Machine mounting ‘Straight force-paths Curvediotiset force-paths Bending moments induced Figure 3.3 Basic principle ~ force transmission Force balance This is relevant to both static and dynamic components and mechanisms. The principle is that forces should be balanced so that resultant forces such as end- thrusts, imbalance and strong bending moments are, as far as is possible, eliminated.Crane sheave - basic design principles [21 ] Steam turbine arrangements Thrust bearing Steam force Force balanced by symmetrical design Force balanced by a thrust bearing Figure 3.4 Basic principle — force balance Forces are best balanced at origin, for example by aiming for design symmetry wherever possible, particularly for rotating parts. The second alternative is to ensure that residual forces are balanced by features such as collars, stiffeners or adequate section thickness as near their plane of origin as possible. Figure 3.4 shows two examples of force balancing. Uniform strength The principle of uniform strength is the core of the more general idea of design economy — the most economical use of materials (and therefore physical size and weight) whilst still fulfilling the duty of the design. A design which has true uniform strength has all the components stressed to the same extent and they all have the same design factor of safety. Practically, this often means that mechanisms need to be made of a selection of shapes and materials. Although a valid objective, the principle of uniform strength is often difficult to achieve in practice — sometimes it is only possible to limit the range of stresses, rather than equalise them, because of other considerations (see Fig. 3.5). Matched deformations This one is more difficult to understand, The objective is first to anticipate the distortions and deflections (both classed as ‘deformations’) that happen to an engineering component in use. The principle of good design is to match these deformations in adjacent and locating components so that they have, as far as possible, the same magnitude and sense. You can see this in operation in Fig. 3.6. The purpose of the hub/shaft arrangement is to transmit torsion, in this case from the hub, which is being driven by the other hub half, to the shaft. In use, both hub and shaft will deform, mainly in torsion. On start-up the hub will experience an initial torsional deformation which will then decrease as the torque is transferred to the shaft. To follow the principle of matched deformations the torsional stiffness of the hub needs to be matched to that of the shaft. This will make sure that the torque is[22] Case Studies in Engineering Design Rubber is in torsion Grub screw is \ in shear Shaft is in torsion fr. la For ‘deat’ uniform strength: Shear stress (torsional) in the shaft = shear stress (torsional) in the hub = shear stress (torsional) in the rubber Example: a bonded rubber coupling = shear stress in the grub screw Hub is in torsion, Figure 3.5 Basic principle - uniform strength transferred evenly along the whole length of the shrink fit, so avoiding undesirable stress concentrations. Figure 3.6 shows good and bad design practice for the hub/ shaft assembly — similar principles can be applied to other drive mechanism components such as bearings, shafts, clutches and brakes. Flange stitness (torsional) ‘matched to that of the shaft Too-stitt Hub torsional deformation Maximum difference Hub = fretting, etc. Same-sense chars deformations ‘Gak Figure 3.6 Basic principle - matched deformationsCrane sheave — basic design principles Optimisation You will often hear optimisation quoted as one of the fundamental objectives of good design. It generally involves minima; trying to obtain minimum weights, number of parts, size, and of course cost. This is fine. It is good design to try to optimise the five basic principles outlined. Conscious attempts to optimise, for instance, force balance and uniform strength will generally result in better, more balanced designs Sometimes, however, it is not so straightforward; the principle of matched deformations does not always sit easily with the idea of keeping costs down. Compromise is often necessary — but this is not an excuse for lax treatment of these design principles. 3.3 Case study task Figure 3.1 shows the general arrangement of the simple crane sheave described at the beginning of the case study. It is an established design which is in common use. Your task is to look at the design of the sheave hanger assembly and identify how the five simple design principles described in the study text have been used. See if you can find, in addition, evidence of any obvious compromises that have been made, perhaps because of cost, or the practicalities of manufacturing the parts. Show the application of the principles by annotating a sketch, or sketches, of the assembly and making brief notes. Detailed discussions or explanations are not necessary.